DMI-ST.

JOHN THE BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

LILONGWE, MALAWI

Module Code: 351 CS 71

Subject Name: MOBILE COMPUTING

Unit II Detail Notes

School of CS & IT

Module Teacher: MR
Modulation in Mobile Computing
Modulation is a process of mixing signals with a sinusoid to produce a new form of signals.
The newly produced signal has certain benefits over an un-modulated signal. Mixing of low-
frequency signal with a high-frequency carrier signal is called Modulation.

In other words, you can say that "Modulation is the process of converting one form of
signals into another form of signals." For example, Analog signals to Digital signals or
Digital signals to Analog signals.

Modulation is also called signal modulation

The baseband or low-frequency signals are not such strong and compatible signals that can be
used for direct transmission. To make these signals travel longer distances, we have to
increase their strength by modulating them with a high-frequency carrier wave. This process
doesn't affect the parameters of the modulating signal.
Modulation is used to make the message carrying signal strong to be transmitted over a long
distance and establish a reliable communication. A high-frequency signal can travel up to a
longer distance without getting affected by external disturbances. In Modulation, these high-
frequency signals are used as a carrier signal to transmit the message signal. This process is
called Modulation. In Modulation, the carrier signals' parameters are changed according to
the instantaneous values of the modulating signal.
Another reason to modulate a signal is to allow a smaller antenna as we know that a low-
frequency signal would need a huge antenna. An antenna needs to be about 1/10th the length
of the wavelength of the signal to be efficient. Modulation converts the low-frequency signal
into a much higher frequency signal, which has much smaller wavelengths and allows a
smaller antenna.
Advantages of Modulation
Following is the list of some advantages of implementing Modulation in the communication
systems:

● By implementing Modulation, the antenna size gets reduced. Before modulation technology,
the antenna used for transmission had to be very large. The range of communication gets
limited as the wave cannot travel to a distance without getting modulated.
● The range of communication has increased.
● The reception quality is immensely improved.
● Receivers are allowed to adjust to the bandwidth.
● Multiplexing of signals occurs.
● No signal mixing occurs.

Types of Modulation
Primarily Modulation can be classified into two types:

● Digital Modulation
 ● Analog Modulation

Digital Modulation
Digital Modulation is a technique in which digital signals/data can be converted into analog
signals. For example, Base band signals.
Digital Modulation can further be classified into four types:

● Amplitude Shift Key(ASK) Modulation

● Minimum Shift Key (MSK) Modulation
● Frequency Shift Key (FSK) Modulation
● Phase Shift Key (PSK) Modulation

Amplitude Shift Key (ASK) Modulation

● As the name suggests, in Amplitude Shift Key or ASKS Modulation, the amplitude is
represented by "1," and if the amplitude does not exist, it is represented by "0".
● Using Amplitude Shift Key Modulation is very simple, and it requires a very low
bandwidth.
● Amplitude Shift Key Modulation is vulnerable to inference or deduction.
Minimum Shift Key (MSK) Modulation

● The Minimum Shift Key or MSK Modulation is the most effective technique of
Modulation and can be implemented for almost every stream of bits. It is easy and
effective than Amplitude Shift Key, Frequency Shift Key and Phase Shift Key.
● MSK is mostly used because of its ability and flexibility to handle "One(1)" and
"Zero(0)" transition of binary bits.

Frequency Shift Key (FSK) Modulation

● In Frequency Shift Key or FSK Modulation, different notations f1 and f2 are used for
different frequencies.
● Here, f1 is used to represent bit "1," and f2 represents bit "0".

● It is also a simple modulation technique but uses different frequencies for different
bits; bandwidth requirement becomes high.
Phase Shift Key (PSK) Modulation

● In Phase Shift Key or PSK Modulation, the phase difference is used to differentiate between
the "1" and "0" bits.
● If the bit is "1", a simple wave is drawn, and if the bit becomes "0", the phase of the wave is
shifted by "180 or π".
● PSK Modulation is more complicated than ASK and FSK Modulation, but it is robust too.

Analog Modulation in Mobile Computing

Analog modulation is a process of transferring analog low-frequency baseband signal such as
an audio or TV signal over a higher frequency carrier signal such as a radio frequency
band. Baseband signals are always analog to this modulation.
In other words, you can say that "Analog Modulation is a technique which is used in analog
data signals transmission into digital signals."
An example of Analog Modulation is Broadband Signals.
There are three properties of a carrier signal in analog modulation i.e., amplitude, frequency
and phase. So, the analog modulation can further be classified as:

● Amplitude Modulation (AM)

● Frequency Modulation (FM)
● Phase Modulation (PM)

Difference between Digital and Analog Modulation

Both digital and analog modulation are used to vary or transform signals from one for to
another, but the difference is that an analog-modulated signal is demodulated into an analog
baseband waveform. On the other hand, in digital modulation, a digitally modulated signal
contains discrete modulation units, called symbols, that are interpreted as digital data.
Amplitude Modulation
Amplitude modulation or AM is a modulation technique that is used in electronic
communication. It is most commonly used for transmitting messages with a radio carrier
wave. It varies the instantaneous amplitude of the carrier signal or waves according to the
message signal's instantaneous amplitude.
If we denote the message signal as m(t) and c(t)= Acoswct, then amplitude modulation
signal F(t) will be written as:
F(t)= Acoswct+m(t) coswct
F(t)=[A+m(t)] coswct

History of Amplitude modulation

Amplitude modulation was the earliest modulation technique used for transmitting audio in
radio broadcasting. It was developed during the first quarter of the 20th century and was
based on the Roberto Landell De Moura and Reginald Fessenden's radiotelephone
experiments proposed in 1900.
Advantages of Amplitude Modulation

● Amplitude Modulation is easy to implement. It is the simplest type of modulation.

● Amplitude Modulation, we can easily do Demodulation by using few components and a
circuit.
● The hardware design of both the transmitter and receiver is very simple, that's why it is cost-
effective.
● The receiver used for Amplitude Modulation is very cheap.

Disadvantages of Amplitude Modulation

● Amplitude Modulation is not a very power efficient technique.

● Amplitude Modulation requires a very high bandwidth that is equivalent to that of the
highest audio frequency.
● Amplitude Modulation is very susceptible to noise. You can easily notice the noise.

Usage of Amplitude Modulation

Amplitude Modulation is used in AM radio communication. AM radio broadcast is an
example of Amplitude Modulation.
Frequency Modulation
Frequency Modulation or FM is the process of encoding the information in a carrier wave by
varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. It varies the instantaneous frequency of the
carrier signal according to the instantaneous amplitude of the message signal.
If we denote the message signal as m(t) and c(t)= Acoswct, then Frequency modulation
signal F(t) will be written as:
F(t)= Acos(wc t+kf ∫m(α)dα)

Advantages of Frequency Modulation

 ● Frequency Modulation is widely used for FM radio broadcasting.
● It is also used in telemetry, sound synthesis, seismic prospecting, radar, and monitoring
newborns for seizures via EEG, two-way radio systems, magnetic tape-recording systems and
some video-transmission systems.
● The main advantage of using frequency modulation in radio transmission is that it has a
larger signal-to-noise ratio. That's why it rejects radio frequency interference better than an
equal power amplitude modulation (AM) signal. This is the main reason why most music
radio channels prefer to broadcast over FM radio.
● In FM, Modulation and Demodulation do not receive any channel noise.

Disadvantages of Frequency Modulation

● FM consists of a complicated circuit than AM for modulation and Demodulation.

Usage of Frequency Modulation

The main example of Frequency Modulation is FM radio broadcasting.
Phase modulation (PM)
Phase modulation or PM is the technique of varying the carrier signal's instantaneous phase
according to the instantaneous amplitude of the message signal. It encodes the message signal
as changes occurred in the instantaneous phase of a carrier signal.
If we denote the message signal as m(t) and c(t)= Acoswct, then Phase modulation signal
F(t) will be written as:
F(t)= Acos(wct+kpm(t))

Advantages of Phase modulation

● Phase Modulation is mainly used for transmitting radio waves. It is also used in many digital
transmission coding schemes and technologies such as Wi-Fi, GSM and satellite television.
 ● In PM, Modulation and Demodulation do not receive any channel noise.

Disadvantages of Phase modulation

● The PM modulation and Demodulation consists of a complicated circuit than AM and FM.

Usage of Phase modulation

Phase Modulation is mainly used in Wi-Fi, GSM, and satellite television

MAC(MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL)

Medium Access Control (MAC) address is a hardware address use to uniquely identify each
node of a network. It provides addressing and channel access control mechanisms to enable
the several terminals or network nodes to communicate in a specified network. Medium
Access Control of data communication protocol is also named as Media Access Control. In
IEEE 802 OSI Reference model of computer networking, the Data Link Control (DLC) layer
is subdivided into two sub-layers:

● The Logical Link Control (LLC) layer and

● The Medium Access Control (MAC) layer

The MAC sublayer acts as a direct interface between the logical link control (LLC) Ethernet
sublayer and the physical layer of reference model. Consequently, each different type of
network medium requires a different MAC layer. On networks that don’t conform they are
part of IEEE 802 standards but they do conform that they participate OSI Reference Model
then the node address is named the Data Link Control (DLC) address. The MAC sublayer
emulates a full-duplex logical communication channel in a multipoint network system. These
communication channels may provide unicast, multicast and/or broadcast communication
services.
LLC and MAC Sublayer

MAC address is suitable when multiple devices are connected with same physical link then to
prevent from collisions system uniquely identify the devices one another at the data link
layer, by using the MAC addresses that are assigned to all ports on a switch. The MAC
sublayer uses MAC protocols to prevent collisions and MAC protocols uses MAC algorithm
that accepts as input a secret key and an arbitrary-length message to be authenticated, and
outputs a MAC address.
Functions performed in the MAC sublayer:
The primary functions performed by the MAC layer as per the IEEE Std 802-2001 section
6.2.3 are as follows:

1. Frame delimiting and recognition: This function is responsible to creates and recognizes
frame boundaries.
2. Addressing: MAC sublayer performs the addressing of destination stations (both as
individual stations and as groups of stations) and conveyance of source-station addressing
information as well.
3. Transparent data transfer: It performs the data transparency over data transfer of LLC,
PDUs, or of equivalent information in the Ethernet sublayer.
4. Protection: MAC sublayer function is to protect the data against errors, generally by means
of generating and checking frame check sequences.
5. Access control: Control of access to the physical transmission medium form unauthorized
medium access.

One of the most commonly used of MAC sublayer for wired networks i.e. Carrier Sense
Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD). Through MAC schema, a sender
senses the medium (a wire or coaxial cable) before transmission of data to check whether the
medium is free or not. If MAC senses that the medium is busy, the sender waits until it is
free. When medium becomes free, the sender starts transmitting of data and continues to
listen into the medium. If any kind of collision detected by sender while sending data, it stops
at once and sends a jamming signal. But this scheme doest work well with wireless networks.
Some of the problems that occur when it uses to transfer data through wireless networks are
as follow;

● Signal strength decreases proportional to the square of the distance

● The sender would apply Carrier Sense (CS) and Collision Detection (CD), but the collisions
happen at the receiver
● It might be a case that a sender cannot “hear” the collision, i.e., CD does not work
● Furthermore, CS might not work, if for e.g., the terminals are“hidden”

ACCESS METHODS
Access methods are multiplexing techniques that provide communications services to
multiple users in a single-bandwidth wired or wireless medium. Communications channels,
whether they’re wireless spectrum segments or cable connections, are expensive.
Communications services providers must engage multiple paid users over limited resources
to make a profit. Access methods allow many users to share these limited channels to provide
the economy of scale necessary for a successful communications business. There are five
basic access or multiplexing methods: frequency division multiple access (FDMA), time
division multiple access (TDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), orthogonal
frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), and spatial division multiple access (SDMA).
Table Of Contents

● FDMA
● TDMA
● CDMA
● OFDMA
● SDMA
● Other Methods
● References

FDMA
FDMA is the process of dividing one channel or bandwidth into multiple individual bands,
each for use by a single user (Fig. 1). Each individual band or channel is wide enough to
accommodate the signal spectra of the transmissions to be propagated. The data to be
transmitted is modulated on to each subcarrier, and all of them are linearly mixed together.
 1. FDMA divides the shared medium bandwidth into individual channels. Subcarriers modulated by
the information to be transmitted occupy each subchannel.

The best example of this is the cable television system. The medium is a single coax cable
that is used to broadcast hundreds of channels of video/audio programming to homes. The
coax cable has a useful bandwidth from about 4 MHz to 1 GHz. This bandwidth is divided up
into 6-MHz wide channels. Initially, one TV station or channel used a single 6-MHz band.
But with digital techniques, multiple TV channels may share a single band today thanks to
compression and multiplexing techniques used in each channel.
This technique is also used in fiber optic communications systems. A single fiber optic cable
has enormous bandwidth that can be subdivided to provide FDMA. Different data or
information sources are each assigned a different light frequency for transmission. Light
generally isn’t referred to by frequency but by its wavelength (λ). As a result, fiber optic
FDMA is called wavelength division multiple access (WDMA) or just wavelength division
multiplexing (WDM).
One of the older FDMA systems is the original analog telephone system, which used a
hierarchy of frequency multiplex techniques to put multiple telephone calls on single line.
The analog 300-Hz to 3400-Hz voice signals were used to modulate subcarriers in 12
channels from 60 kHz to 108 kHz. Modulator/mixers created single sideband (SSB) signals,
both upper and lower sidebands. These subcarriers were then further frequency multiplexed
on subcarriers in the 312-kHz to 552-kHz range using the same modulation methods. At the
receiving end of the system, the signals were sorted out and recovered with filters and
demodulators.
Original aerospace telemetry systems used an FDMA system to accommodate multiple
sensor data on a single radio channel. Early satellite systems shared individual 36-MHz
bandwidth transponders in the 4-GHz to 6-GHz range with multiple voice, video, or data
signals via FDMA. Today, all of these applications use TDMA digital techniques.
TDMA
TDMA is a digital technique that divides a single channel or band into time slots. Each time
slot is used to transmit one byte or another digital segment of each signal in sequential serial
data format. This technique works well with slow voice data signals, but it’s also useful for
compressed video and other high-speed data.
A good example is the widely used T1 transmission system, which has been used for years in
the telecom industry. T1 lines carry up to 24 individual voice telephone calls on a single line
(Fig. 2). Each voice signal usually covers 300 Hz to 3000 Hz and is digitized at an 8-kHz
rate, which is just a bit more than the minimal Nyquist rate of two times the highest-
frequency component needed to retain all the analog content.
2. This T1 digital telephony frame illustrates TDM and TDMA. Each time slot is allocated to one user.
The high data rate makes the user unaware of the lack of simultaneity.

The digitized voice appears as individual serial bytes that occur at a 64-kHz rate, and 24 of
these bytes are interleaved, producing one T1 frame of data. The frame occurs at a 1.536-
MHz rate (24 by 64 kHz) for a total of 192 bits. A single synchronizing bit is added for
timing purposes for an overall data rate of 1.544 Mbits/s. At the receiving end, the individual
voice bytes are recovered at the 64-kHz rate and passed through a digital-to-analog converter
(DAC) that reproduces the analog voice.
The basic GSM (Global System of Mobile Communications) cellular phone system is
TDMA-based. It divides up the radio spectrum into 200-kHz bands and then uses time
division techniques to put eight voice calls into one channel. Figure 3 shows one frame of a
GSM TDMA signal. The eight time slots can be voice signals or data such as texts or e-mails.
The frame is transmitted at a 270-kbit/s rate using Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK),
which is a form of frequency shift keying (FSK) modulation.

3. This GSM digital cellular method shows how up to eight users can share a 200-kHz channel in
different time slots within a frame of 1248 bits

CDMA
CDMA is another pure digital technique. It is also known as spread spectrum because it takes
the digitized version of an analog signal and spreads it out over a wider bandwidth at a lower
power level. This method is called direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) as well (Fig. 4).
The digitized and compressed voice signal in serial data form is spread by processing it in an
XOR circuit along with a chipping signal at a much higher frequency. In the cdma IS-95
standard, a 1.2288-Mbit/s chipping signal spreads the digitized compressed voice at 13
kbits/s.
 4. Spread spectrum is the technique of CDMA. The compressed and digitized voice signal is
processed in an XOR logic circuit along with a higher-frequency coded chipping signal. The result is
that the digital voice is spread over a much wider bandwidth that can be shared with other users
using different codes.

The chipping signal is derived from a pseudorandom code generator that assigns a unique
code to each user of the channel. This code spreads the voice signal over a bandwidth of 1.25
MHz. The resulting signal is at a low power level and appears more like noise. Many such
signals can occupy the same channel simultaneously. For example, using 64 unique chipping
codes allows up to 64 users to occupy the same 1.25-MHz channel at the same time. At the
receiver, a correlating circuit finds and identifies a specific caller’s code and recovers it.
The third generation (3G) cell-phone technology called wideband CDMA (WCDMA) uses a
similar method with compressed voice and 3.84-Mbit/s chipping codes in a 5-MHz channel to
allow multiple users to share the same band.
OFDMA
OFDMA is the access technique used in Long-Term Evolution (LTE) cellular systems to
accommodate multiple users in a given bandwidth. Orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM) is a modulation method that divides a channel into multiple narrow
orthogonal bands that are spaced so they don’t interfere with one another. Each band is
divided into hundreds or even thousands of 15-kHz wide subcarriers.
The data to be transmitted is divided into many lower-speed bit streams and modulated onto
the subcarriers. Time slots within each subchannel data stream are used to package the data to
be transmitted (Fig. 5). This technique is very spectrally efficient, so it provides very high
data rates. It also is less affected by multipath propagation effects.
 5. OFDMA assigns a group of subcarriers to each user. The subcarriers are part of the large number
of subcarriers used to implement OFDM for LTE. The data may be voice, video, or something else,
and it’s assembled into time segments that are then transmitted over some of the assigned
subcarriers.

SDMA
SDMA uses physical separation methods that permit the sharing of wireless channels. For
instance, a single channel may be used simultaneously if the users are spaced far enough from
one another to avoid interference. Known as frequency reuse, the method is widely used in
cellular radio systems. Cell sites are spaced from one another to minimize interference.
In addition to spacing, directional antennas are used to avoid interference. Most cell sites use
three antennas to create 120° sectors that allow frequency sharing (Fig. 6a). New
technologies like smart antennas or adaptive arrays use dynamic beamforming to shrink
signals into narrow beams that can be focused on specific users, excluding all others (Fig.
6b).
 6. SDMA separates users on shared frequencies by isolating them with directional antennas. Most
cell sites have three antenna arrays to separate their coverage into isolated 120° sectors (a).
Adaptive arrays use beamforming to pinpoint desired users while ignoring any others on the same
frequency (b).

One unique variation of SDMA, polarization division multiple access (PDMA), separates
signals by using different polarizations of the antennas. Two different signals then can use the
same frequency, one transmitting a vertically polarized signal and the other transmitting a
horizontally polarized signal.
The signals won’t interfere with one another even if they’re on the same frequency because
they’re orthogonal and the antennas won’t respond to the oppositely polarized signal.
Separate vertical and horizontal receiver antennas are used to recover the two orthogonal
signals. This technique is widely used in satellite systems.

Difference between FDMA, CDMA and TDMA:

FDMA TDMA CDMA

FDMA stands for TDMA stands for
CDMA stands for Code
Frequency Division Time Division
Division Multiple Access.
Multiple Access. Multiple Access.
In this, sharing of In this, only the In this, there is sharing of
bandwidth among sharing of time of both i.e. bandwidth and
different stations takes satellite transponder time among different
place. takes place. stations takes place.
There is no need of any There is no need of
Codeword is necessary.
codeword. any codeword.
In this, there is only need In this, guard time of In this, both guard bands
of guard bands between the adjacent slots are and guard time are
the adjacent channels are necessary. necessary.
 FDMA TDMA CDMA
necessary.
Synchronization is not Synchronization is Synchronization is not
required. required. required.
The rate of data is
The rate of data is low. The rate of data is high.
medium.
Mode of data transfer is Mode of data transfer Mode of data transfer is
continuous signal. is signal in burts. digital signal.
It is little flexible. It is moderate flexible. It is highly flexible