Modulation Techniques

Norliza Farhah binti Abdul Radzak

Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal, Pulau Pinang

I.
INTRODUCTION
Radio frequency transmission or the RF
transmission is commonly used by many types of
wireless devices. Cordless and cellular telephone,
radio and television broadcast stations, satellite
communications systems and two-way radio
services all operated by utilizing the RF spectrum.
It works on the principle that if a current is
supplied to an antenna, an electromagnetic (EM)
field is generated suitable for wireless
broadcasting or communications. In satellite
communications, RF transmission is commonly
used between the ground station and the satellite
for data transmission and communication. In order
to send information across the RF transmission, a
high frequency carrier signal is used as a medium
for the information. Modulation is the process of
imposing the information on the carrier signal to
be transmitted.
II.
MODULATION
Carrier
signal
is
a
transmitted
electromagnetic pulse of wave at a steady base
frequency. Information can be imposed on the
carrier signal by increasing the signal strength,
varying the base frequency and varying the wave
phase. The process of imposing information on
carrier signal is called modulation.
Modulation is the process of superimposing
the information contents of a modulating signal on
a carrier signal. This is done by varying the
characteristics of the high frequency carrier signal
according to the modulating signal. Modulation is
divided into analog modulation and digital
modulation.
Analog modulation is the process of
converting an analog input signal into a signal that
is suitable for radio frequency transmission. This is
done so that the information bearing analog signal
can travel larger distance without the fear of loss
due to absorption. There are two types of analog
modulation, namely amplitude modulation and
angle modulation. Angle modulation is further

divided into frequency modulation and phase

modulation.
In amplitude modulation, the
strength of the carrier signal is varied with
modulating signal. In frequency modulation, the
frequency of the carrier signal is varied with the
modulating signal while in phase modulation, the
phase of the carrier signal is varied with the
modulating signal.
Digital modulation is the process of
converting a digital bit stream into an analog signal
suitable for radio frequency transmission. There
are two bits types in binary, logic 0 (low) and logic
1 (high). This is done to convert the digital signal to
analog for transmission. Afterwards, demodulating
is applied to convert analog signal back to digital
signal. Analog signal bearing information is
transmitted by the digital method. There are four
types of digital modulation namely, pulse code
modulation, differential pulse modulation, delta
modulation and adaptive delta modulation.

Figure 1: Carrier signal, modulating signal,

amplitude modulation and frequency modulation
(Source: www.hill2dot0.com)
Modulation is done mainly to achieve two
main goals. The first is to allow simultaneous
transmission of two or more signals by translation
to different frequency. The second is to utilise the
propagation properties of signal at different
wavelength.
Demodulation is the process done to recover
the signal intelligence from the modulated carried

wave. This is done at the receiver to obtain the

information from the radio frequency transmission.

keying modulation (BPSK) where there is only two

phases. For m-ary or multiple phase shift keying,
four phases is known as quadrature phase shift
keying and eight phases is known as octo phase
shift keying.

Figure 3: Amplitude demodulation process

(Source: www.tutorvista.com)
III.

AMPLITUDE SHIFT KEYING MODULATION

(ASK)
Amplitude shift keying modulation (ASK) is
the process of modifying the amplitude of a carrier
sinusoid in a discrete manner depending on the
value of a modulating symbol. It assigns bit values
to discrete amplitude levels. Carrier signal is then
modulated among the members of a set of
discrete values to transmit information. The
resultant bandwidth of the modulated signal is the
same as the bandwidth of the baseband signal.
The baseband signal is a long and random
sequence of pulses with discrete values thus ASK is
not bandwidth efficient. It is commonly used in
applications that require simplicity and low cost.
IV.

FREQUENCY SHIFT KEYING MODULATION

(FSK)
Frequency shift keying modulation (FSK)
assigns bit values to discrete frequency levels. It
uses binary system represented by analog
waveform. Logic 0 and logic 1 are assigned with
different frequencies. There are two forms of FSK,
noncoherent and coherent form. In noncoherent
form, there is an instantaneous frequency shift
between two discrete values, mark frequency
and space frequency. In coherent form, there is
no phase discontinuity in the output signal. The
modulated waveforms are strictly real values. A
modem converts the binary signal from the
computer to FSK for transmission.
V.

PHASE SHIFT KEYING MODULATION (PSK)

Phase shift keying modulation (PSK) is an
angle modulation where the phase of the carrier is
discretely varied. This is done either in relation to a
reference phase or to the phase of the
immediately preceding signal element. PSK is done
to represent the data being transmitted. The
simplest type of PSK is the binary phase shift

Figure 2: Phase shift keying modulation (PSK)

(Source: www.technologyuk.net)
VI.
BINARY PHASE SHIFT KEYING (BPSK)
In binary phase shift keying (BPSK), there are
two opposite signal phases (0 and 180). The
digital signal is broken timewise into individual bits
using binary digits. The states of the bits are
determined by the state of preceding bits. If the
phase is constant, the signal stays the same, either
0 or 1. If the phase of the wave changes by 180, in
which the phase reverses, the signal state changes
either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0. BPSK is also
known as biphase modulation.
VII.

QUADRATURE PHASE SHIFT KEYING

(QPSK)
Quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) is one
of the multiple phase shift keying. It is also known
as quaternary PSK. In QPSK, there are four phase,
0, +90, -90 and 180. The data is transmitted at
a faster rate as the rate of data transfer is relative
to the number of phase changes per unit time.
VIII.

RELATION BETWEEN MODULATION

TECHNIQUES WITH BIT ERROR RATE (BER)
Bit error rate (BER) is the percentage of bits
that have error relative to the total number of bits
received in a transmission, usually expressed as

ten to a negative power. BER is an indication of

how often a packet or other data unit has to be
retransmitted because of an error. BER is
measured at the output of the receiver. During
transmission over a long distance, the signal
experiences the degrading of the signal-to-noise
ratio (SNR). This will affect the ability to demolute
the signal. If the BER is high, slower transmission
might be favourable as the time increases due to
the need to resend the data again. Modulation
techniques that are capable of delivering more bits
per symbol are more immune to errors caused by
noise and interference in the channel. Thus,
quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is more
favourable compared to BPSK and QPSK. For BPSK
and QPSK, error correction coding is necessary to
decrease the BER.

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IX.
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