5.
FREQUENCY SHIFT KEYING (FSK)
OVERVIEW
Frequency-shift keying (FSK) allows digital information to be transmitted by changes or shifts in
the frequency of a carrier signal, most commonly an analog carrier sine wave. There are two
binary states in a signal, zero (0) and one (1), each of which is represented by an analog wave
form. This binary data is converted by a modem into an FSK signal, which can be transmitted via
telephone lines, fiber optics or wireless media.
In short, Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) is the digital modulation technique in which the frequency
of the carrier signal varies according to the digital signal changes.
For example, a low-speed modem uses an
unbit FM technique. When no digital
information is transmitted, the frequency is
1,700 Hz. When a one is transmitted, the
frequency shifts to 2,200 Hz. When a zero is
transmitted, the frequency shifts to 1,200 Hz.
The number of these frequency shifts per
second is measured as the baud or
modulation rate. Thus, a 2,400 baud modem
can process zeros and ones from a computer
at the rate of 2,400 bits per second using FSK.
This is the simplest digital communication, Pic 1 An Illustration for FSK binary input and modulated wave
where baud and bit rate are the same and
measured in bits per second.
In more advanced modems and data transmission techniques, a symbol may have more than two
states, not just zeros and ones. It may also represent more than one bit of information. However,
a single bit always represents one of two states – either a zero (0) or a one (1). In this case, baud
(or symbol rate expressed in symbols/second or pulses /second) and bit rate are different and
must not be confused with one another.
The modulator for the FSK system consists of two oscillators, each producing a higher and a lower
frequency signals, both are connected to a switch along with an internal clock. To avoid the abrupt
phase discontinuities of the output waveform during the transmission of the message, a clock is
applied to both the oscillators, internally. The binary input sequence is applied to the transmitter so
as to choose the frequencies according to the binary input.
Pic 2 Logic for FSK Modulator
Meanwhile the demodulation took place in demodulator. The demodulator consists of two variants,
The coherent one, a.k.a The Synchronous Demodulator, And the non-coherent or Asynchronous
Demodulator. Each of them converts the modulated back to the binary with a very different approach.
The Asynchronous Modulator is using two band pass filters to achieve this. When FSK signal is passed
through the two Band Pass Filters (BPFs), tuned to specific frequencies equals to modulated signal.
The output from these two BPFs look like ASK signal, which is given to the envelope detector. The
signal in each envelope detector is modulated asynchronously. The decision circuit chooses which
output is more likely and selects it from any one of the envelope detectors. It also re-shapes the
waveform to a rectangular one.
Meanwhile, In Synchronous Demodulator, The FSK signal input is given to the two synchronous wave
detectors with local oscillator circuits. These two are connected to a comparator and then fed to a
low band pass filter. These combinations act as demodulators and the decision circuit chooses which
output is more likely and selects it from any one of the detectors. The two signals have a minimum
frequency separation.
ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS
I made a MATLAB file that consists of the source code written in the instruction. I named the file
FSK_calculation.m . And just like the previous Amplitude Shift Keying code, Now the code asks
us to input several parameters that going to affect the plot. The parameters are Frequency of
Sine Wave Carrier, Frequency of Periodic Binary Pulse and the Amplitude of both Carrier and
Binary Pulse, But the difference here is that there is two carrier signal, named the first and the
second. The following table shows us each result of some variations I made to those variables.
N
o
Frequency
of First
Frequency
of 2nd
Frequency of
Binary
Amplitude
Result
Carrier Carrier Information
1 2 10 2
2
1 3 10 2
2 5 20 2
5 10 20 2
5 20 20 2
DIFFERENCE BETWEEEN FM AND FSK
Both FM (Frequency Modulation) and Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) uses Frequency to modulate
information or messages to be carried further with the carrier signal. But there are few key
differences. First, The FM is mostly used to send an analog data and FSK is mostly used for digital
or binary data. Second, in FM we can’t really choose the frequency used to convey or represent
the message signal, because all of them are represented by either non-binary number and analog
messages makes it difficult to estimate what exact frequencies are used in the FM Modulation,
hence the FM are usually not having any exact number of frequency, but bandwidth spanning
between smallest number and biggest number possible made by Frequency Modulator. But, in the
FSK modulation, the number of frequency used are exact and can be easily determined or
detected because we are the one who decide on what frequencies that will be used to convey
either 1 or 0.
MAXIMUM NUMBERS OF POSSIBLE MESSAGE CONVEYED
When I tried to set the number of message frequency to 500 and something odd is happened.
The modulated signal goes non-linear and seems to be randomly scattered. I thought this was a
MATLAB Glitch or my code goes wrong since the number 499 and 501 is all right and could
modulate those messages well, But when I executed it on other computer, it looks like the same,
so it wasn’t from MATLAB but it comes from the characteristic of the code itself. It is not affected
by any other modifiable variables.
Therefore, I concluded that the largest number of message frequency that could be taken by FSK
Modulation is 500. The following is the Illustration.
When the Frequency is equal to 499
When The Frequency is equals to 500
When The Frequency is equals to 501
