Amplitude Modulation

Why carrier modulation?

• Baseband communication without carrier modulation cannot be transmitted over
radio links but are suitable for transmission over a pair of wires, coaxial cable,
optical fibers
• Ex: Local telephone communication, long distance PCM over optical fiber

• Carrier Modulation: (suitable for radio communication)

• The vast spectrum available can be efficiently utilized (Freq. division
multiplexing)
• The frequency allows reasonably sized antennas ~
• The selected frequencies are within the frequencies allocated to you by the
government for your application
Analog communication techniques:
why?
• Why bother?
• After all, the world is going digital
• Modern communication system designers focused mainly on DSP algorithms
for digital communication.
• But need to understand the underlying physical analog signals
• Establishes common language with circuit designers
• Analog-centric techniques become critical when pushing the limits of carrier
frequency, bandwidth and/or power consumption
• Focus of these techniques is on baseband to passband conversion,
and back
 Amplitude modulation
• DSB: encode info in I component
• Uses twice the bandwidth it really needs
• Requires carrier sync for demodulation
• Conventional AM
• Modifies DSB to eliminate carrier sync requirement at the
expense of power efficiency
• SSB/VSB
• More efficient bandwidth usage than DSB
• Requires carrier sync for demodulation
• Can be modified to eliminate carrier sync requirement at the
expense of power efficiency
Key concepts
• Two ways of encoding info in complex envelope
• I and Q  amplitude modulation (several variants)
• Envelope and phase  angle modulation (constant envelope)
• Up/down conversion
• Multiple stages or single stage (superheterodyne or direct
conversion)
• Phase locked loop
• Feedback-based synchronization and tracking
Terminology
• Message Signal: The analog baseband message signal is denoted by
m(t). Any message we would encounter in practice would have finite
energy (time-limited signal).
• When modelling transmissions over long time intervals, it is useful to
think of messages as finite power signals spanning an infinite time
interval.
• Since we consider physical message signals, the time domain signal is
real valued, so that its Fourier transform (defined for a finite energy
signal) is conjugate symmetric:
• M(f) = M∗(−f).
Terminology
• Finite-power sinusoidal message signal,
• m(t) = Am cos(2πfmt), whose spectrum consists of impulses at ±fm:
• M(f) = (Am/2) (δ(f − fm) + δ(f + fm)).

• DC value of m(t)

• Power of m(t)
A sinusoidal message
Transmitted Signal: I and Q
Components
• When the signal transmitted over the channel is a passband signal

where fc is a carrier frequency, uc (t) is the inphase (I) component, us(t) is

the quadrature (Q) component, e(t) ≥ 0 is the envelope, and θ(t) is the
phase. Modulation consist of encoding the message in u c(t) and us(t), or
equivalently, in e(t) and θ(t), where
Modulating I and/or Q components
• In most of the analog amplitude modulation schemes considered, the
message modulates the I component.
• The exception is quadrature amplitude modulation, in which both I
and Q components carry separate messages.
• In phase and frequency modulation, or angle modulation, the
message directly modulates the phase θ(t) or its derivative, keeping
the envelope e(t) unchanged.
Double-Sideband Suppressed
Carrier (DSB-SC)
• The message m(t) modulates the I component of the passband
transmitted signal u(t) as follows:
• uDSB(t) = Am(t) cos(2πfct)
• Taking Fourier transforms, we have
• UDSB(f) =A/2 (M(f − fc) +M(f + fc))
DSB-SC signal Am(t) cos(2πfct) for m(t)= Am
cos(2πfmt)
 A more interesting example

Consider the finite-energy message. Since

the time domain message m(t) is real-valued,
its spectrum exhibits conjugate symmetry.
DSB spectrum
DSB-SC Spectrum
• The message bandwidth is denoted by B. The bandwidth of the DSB-
SC signal is 2B, which is twice the message bandwidth.

• The shape of the signal in the USB (i.e., Up(f) for fc < f ≤ fc + B) is the
same as that of the message for positive frequencies (i.e., M(f), f > 0).

• The shape of the signal in the LSB (i.e., Up(f) for fc − B ≤ f < fc) is the
same as that of the message for negative frequencies (i.e., M(f), f < 0).
 Sideband Information
• Since m(t) is real-valued, we have M(−f) = M∗(f)
•  Re(M(f)) is even and Im(M(f)) is odd.

• Thus, the USB and LSB of u(t) each contain enough information to
reconstruct the message.

• The term DSB refers to the fact that we are sending both sidebands.
Doing this, of course, is wasteful of spectrum. This motivates single
sideband (SSB) and vestigial sideband (VSB) modulation.

• The term suppressed carrier is employed because, for a message with

no DC component, the transmitted signal does not have a discrete
Coherent/Synchronous Demodulation of
DSB-SC

Analysis?

This method of recovering the baseband signal is called synchronous detection, or

coherent detection, where we use a carrier of exactly the same frequency (and phase)
as the carrier
used for modulation. Thus, for demodulation, we need to generate a local carrier at
the receiver
Impact of phase offset
Passband received signal, with
phase offset wrt local carrier at RX

The output of the demodulator after LPF

• I component extracted by down-converter

• Message gets attenuated due to phase offset
Phase Mismatch Problem
• θr is the phase of the received carrier relative to the local copy of the
carrier produced by the receiver’s local oscillator (LO).
• For the demodulator to work well, we must have θr as close to zero as
possible; that is, the carrier produced by the LO must be coherent with
the received carrier. The signal gets significantly attenuated as the phase
mismatch increases, and becomes zero (no signal) for θr = p/2 .

• Phase synchronization is absolutely essential for coherent demodulation!

 How to avoid synchronization
requirement?
• The envelope (or magnitude of complex envelope) does not
depend on carrier phase

• Suppose we can extract the envelope of a passband signal

(using a simple circuit), then carrier sync. is not required

• How do we recover the message from the envelope?

DSB-SC waveform
 What does the envelope tell
us? Example: sinusoidal message waveform

DSB signal DSB signal + strong carrier component

Envelope = message magnitude Envelope = message + DC shift

 Envelope detection loses info Envelope detector + DC block

in message sign recovers message info
Amplitude Modulation (AM)
• In conventional AM, we add a large carrier component to a DSB-SC
signal, so that the pass-band transmitted signal is of the form:

uAM(t) = A m(t) cos(2πfct) + Ac cos(2πfct)

we sketch the envelope |Ac + Am(t)| and its mirror image - |Ac + Am(t)|
and fill in between with the sinusoid of the carrier frequency fc

The size of Ac affects the time domain envelope of the modulated

signal
Taking the Fourier transform,

UAM(f) = A/2 (M(f − fc) +M(f + fc)) + Ac/2 (δ(f − fc) + δ(f + fc))

• In addition to the USB and LSB due to the message modulation, we

also have impulses at ±fc due to the unmodulated carrier.
• The key concept behind conventional AM is that, by making Ac large
enough, the message can be demodulated using a simple envelope
detector.
 Conventional AM
Add strong carrier component to DSB signal

AM spectrum

Envelope of AM signal

Condition needed for envelope to preserve message info

Can be expressed in terms of modulation index

 Modulation Index,

Should be smaller than one for envelope detection

Convenient to normalize message so largest negative swing is -1

AM signal expressed in terms of modulation index and normalized message

 Effect of modulation index
Example of sinusoidal message

amod 0.5
amod 1

 Envelope = message + DC Envelope = message



Message info not preserved

in envelope
amod 1.5
Demodulation of Conventional AM
• The received signal is given by
• yp(t) = B (1 + amodmn(t)) cos(2πfct + θr)
• where θr is a phase offset which is unknown a priori. As long as amod ≤ 1, we can recover
the message without knowing θr using envelope detection, since the envelope is still
just a scaled and DC-shifted version of the message.

• The envelope detector is shown next. The diode (ideal) conducts in only the forward
direction, when the input voltage vin(t) of the passband signal is larger than the output
voltage vout(t) across the RC filter. When this happens, the output voltage becomes
equal to the input voltage instantaneously.
• When the input voltage is smaller than the output voltage, the diode does not conduct,
and the capacitor starts discharging through the resistor with time constant RC.
How do we do envelope detection?

Positive carrier cycle  capacitor charges up (reaches value of envelope)

Negative carrier cycle  capacitor discharges with RC time constant
Envelope Detection
• The capacitor gets charged at each carrier peak, and discharges between peaks.
The time interval between successive charging episodes is therefore approximately
equal to 1/fc, the time between successive carrier peaks.
• The factor by which the output voltage is reduced during this period due to
capacitor discharge is exp(−1/(fcRC)). This must be close to one in order for the
voltage to follow the envelope, rather than the variations in the sinusoidal carrier.
• The decay in the envelope detector output must be fast enough (i.e., the RC time
constant must be small enough) so that it can follow changes in the envelope.
Since the time constant for envelope variations is inversely proportional to the
message bandwidth B, we must have RC ≪ 1/B. Combining these two conditions
for envelope detection to work well, we have
• 1/fc ≪ RC ≪1/B
Envelope Detector
• This requires that fc ≫ B (carrier frequency much larger than
message bandwidth). E. g., the carrier frequencies in broadcast AM
radio are over 500 KHz, whereas the message bandwidth is limited to
5 KHz.
• The RC time constant for an envelope detector should be chosen so
that
• 2 μs ≪ RC ≪ 200 μs
• For RC = 20μs, for example, with R = 50 ohms, and C = 400 nF.
 Envelope detector operation
RC too large

Positive carrier cycle  capacitor charges up (reaches value of envelope)

Negative carrier cycle  capacitor discharges with RC time constant
Should not discharge too fast during negative cycle
Should react fast enough to follow variations in envelope
(which depend on message bandwidth B)
Power efficiency
Power of AM signal

0 (DC component of
passband signal at 2fc

Power of message bearing component of AM signal

Power efficiency
Example
• Problem 3.1 Figure shows a signal
obtained after amplitude
modulation by a sinusoidal
message. The carrier frequency is
difficult to determine from the
figure, and is not needed for
answering the questions below.
(a) Find the modulation index.
(b) Find the signal power.
(c) Find the bandwidth of the AM
signal.
• A)

• B)

where for sinusoidal signal

Example power efficiency
computation
Need to find minimum value of message m(t) and then normalize by its magnitude to get mn

Suffices to minimize g(x)2sin x  3cos2x

Can minimize numerically (over a period) or analytically to get

min x g(x)min t m(t)  19 /6  M 0


m(t) 12 18
 mn (t)   sin 2000t  cos 4000t
M 0 19 19

 m(t) 12 18
mn (t)   sin 2000t  cos 4000t
M 0 19 19


= 0.24 for amod=0.7