but instead the lag caused the received phasor to appear as exp [j21rf0(t + Td) -

1r/2], then the detecting correlator would yield a zero output. This is so because

f u
T cosw0t cos (w0t
~
- ;) dt = f o
T cosw0t sinw0t di = O

Find the user's mínimum distance movement that will cause a 1r/2 phase rotation.
Solution
(a) lnitially, Jet t = O, so that when the mobile user is Iocated at point A, the received
phasor at the base station can be expressed as r(t) = exp (j21TfoTc1)·Then, after the
user's movement to point B, the received (further delayed) phasor r,¡(t = Tc1 + T,í ),
can be written as rit) = exp [j2mf0(Tc1 + T,í)J. The mínimum delay time T,1' corre-
sponding to a 21r ( one wavelength) phasor rotation is Ti/ = 1 lf0 = 10­9 second.
Therefore, the mínimum distance for such a rotation (assurning ideal electromag-
netic propagation at the speed of light) is

e
d' = fo = 108 m/s X 10-9 s = 0.3 m

(b) Thus, for a 1r/2 phasor rotation, the mínimum distance is

,, d' 0.3 m
d =­=
4 4 = 7 . 5 cm

It should be clear that even if a transmitter and receiver are located on fixed tow-
ers, a small amount of wind movement can bring about complete uncertainty re-
garding phase. If we scale our example from a frequency of 1 GHz to that of 10
GHz, the mínimum distance scales from 7.5 cm to 0.75 cm. Very often we might
want to avoid building receivers with PLLs for carrier recovery. The results of this
example might then motívate us to ask, How will the error performance suffer if
phase information is not used in the detection process? In other words, how will
the system fare if the detection is performed noncoherently? We address this
question in the sections that follow.

4.5 NONCOHEREN"'f DETECTION

4.5.1 Detection of Differential PSK

The name differential PSK (DPSK) sometimes needs clarification because two
separate aspects of the modulation/demodulation format are being referred to: the
encoding procedure and the detection procedure. The term differential encoding
refers to the procedure of encoding the data differentially; that is, the presence
of a binary one or zero is manifested by the symbol's similarity or difference when
compared with the preceding symbol. The term differentially coherent detection of
differentially encoded PSK, the usual meaning of DPSK, refers to a detection
scheme often classified as noncoherent because it does not require a reference in
phase with the received carrier. Occasionally, differentially encoded PSK is coher-
ently detected. This will be discussed in Section 4.7.2.

194 Bandpass Modulation and Demodulation Chap. 4

 With noncoherent systems, no atternpt is made to determine the actual value
of the phase of the incoming signal. Therefore, if the transmitted waveform is

S;(t) =
/2E
\/TCOS[Wot + 0;(t)]
O< t < T
i = l, ... , M
the received signaJ can be characterized by

r(t) -rr=
= /2E [wol + 0;(t) +a]+ n(t)
osr s
i =
r
1, ... , M
'
( 4.41)

where a is an arbitrary constant and is typicaJly assumed to be a random variable

uniformly distributed between zero and 2'1T, and n(t) is an A WGN process.
For coherent detection, matched filters (or tbeir equivalents) are used; for
noncoherent detection, this is not possible because the matched filter output is
a function of the unknown angle ex. However, if we assume that a varíes slowly
relative to two period times (2T), the phase difference between two successive
waveforms 0j(T1) and 0/T2) is independent of a; that is,
( 4.42)
The basis for differentially coherent detection of differentiaUy encoded PSK
(DPSK) is as follows. Toe carrier phase of the previous signaling interval can be
used as a phase reference for demoduJation. Its use requires differential encoding
of the message sequence at the transmitter since the information is carried by the
difference in phase between two successive waveforrns. To send the ith message
(i = 1, 2, ... , M), the present signa) waveform must have its phase advanced
by cp¡ = 27ri/M radians over the previous waveform. The detector, in general, calcu-
lates the coordinates of the incoming signa! by correlating it with locaJly generated
waveforms, such as -V2[i cos w0t and -V2[i sin w0t. the detector then measures
the angle between the currently received signa! vector and the previously received
signa! vector, as illustrated in Figure 4.16.
In general, DPSK signaling performs less efficiently than PSK, because the
errors in DPSK tend to propagare (to adjacent symbol times) dueto the correlation
between signaling wavef.orms. One way of viewing the difference between PSK and

(a­, b1)
Sto red
Angle signal vector
(a2, b2) measured
Currently by detector
received (j>¡ <j>¡ = 21ti!M
signal vector
i=1, ...,M

Figure 4.16 Signa! space for

DPSK.

4.5 Noncoherent Detection 195

DPSK is that the former compares the received signa) with a clean reference; in the
latter, however, two noisy signals are compared with each other. We might say that
there is twice as much noise associated with DPSK signaling compared to PSK sig-
naling. Consequently, as a first guess, we might estímate that the error probability
for DPSK is approximately two times (3 dB) worse than PSK; this degradation
decreases rapidly with increasing signal-to-noise ratio. The trade-off for this perfor-
manee loss is reduced system complexity. The error performance for the detection
of DPSK is treated in Section 4.7.5.

4.5.2 Binary Differential PSK Example

The essence of differentially coherent detection in DPSK is that the identity of the
data is inferred from the changes in phase from symbol to symbol. Therefore, be-
cause the data are detected by differentially examining the waveform, the transmit-
ted waveform must first be encoded in a differential fashion. Figure 4.l 7a
illustrates a differential encoding of a binary message data stream m(k), where k is
the sample time index. The differential encoding starts (third row in the figure)
with the first bit of the code-bit sequence c(k = O), chosen arbitrarily (here taken to
be a one). Then the sequence of encoded bits c(k) can, in general, be encoded in
one of two ways:
c(k) = c(k - 1) Et) m(k) (4.43)

or
c(k) = c(k - 1) Et) m(k) (4.44)

where the symbol Et) represents modulo-2 addition (defined in Section 2.9.3) and
the overbar denotes complement. In Figure 4.17a the differentially encoded mes-
sage was obtained by using Equation (4.44). In other words, the present code bit
c(k) is a one if the message bit m(k) and the prior coded bit c(k - 1) are the same,
otherwise, c(k) is a zero. The fourth row translates the coded bit sequence c(k) into
the phase shift sequence O(k), where a one is characterized by a 180º phase shift,
and a zero is .characterized by a Oº phase shift.
Figure 4.17b illustrates the binary DPSK detection scheme in block diagram
form. Notice that the basic product integrator of Figure 4.7 is the essence of the de-
modulator; as with coherent PSK, we are still attempting to correlate a received
signa! with a reference. The interesting difference here is that the reference signa!
is simply a delayed version of the received signal. In other words, during each
symbol time, we are matching a received symbol with the prior symbol and looking
for a correlation or an anticorrelation (180º out of phase ).
Consider the received signa) with phase shift sequence O(k) entering the cor-
relator of Figure 4.17b, in the absence of noise. Toe phase O(k = 1) is matched with
O(k = O); they have the same value, -rr; hence the first bit of the detected output is
m(k = 1) = l. Toen O(k = 2) is matched with O(k = l); again they have the same
value, and m(k = 2) = l. Then O(k = 3) is matched with O(k = 2); they are different,
so that mt]: = 3) = O, and so on.

196 Bandpass Modulation and Demodulation Chap. 4