Chapter 4: Modulation Techniques

Goals of the Chapter

 Review some of the basic modulation schemes used in
wireless and mobile communication
 Analog modulation:- used in the 1st generation of cellular system
 Digital modulation:- used in the 2nd generation and afterwards

 To see the performance of various modulation techniques

in fading channels
 Power vs. bandwidth efficiency

2
Overview
 Introduction
 Digital modulation techniques
 Modulation performance in AWGN
 Modulation performance in fading channels

3
Block Diagram of Digital Transceiver Block

Information Source Channel

Source Encoder Encoder Modulator

Channel

Information Source Channel Demodulator

Sink Decoder Decoder

4
Descriptions of Transceiver Block Diagram
 Information source
 Assumption: - Discrete-time discrete amplitude signal
 Continuous-time (analog):– apply sampling and quantization

 Source encoding: Reducing redundant information in the

source signal
 Represents the message with as few binary digits as possible
 I.e., data compression

 Channel encoding: Adding redundancy to protect data

against transmission errors, i.e., noise, interference, fading

5
Descriptions of Transceiver Block Diagram
 Channel: The physical medium that is used to send the
signal from the transmitter to the receiver
 In wireless transmission, the channel is the atmosphere
 In wired channels: Wire lines, optical fiber s
 The transmitted signal is corrupted by additive thermal noise, path
loss and fading

 Receiver Blocks: Perform the inverse of the transmitter

operations in order to recover the original analog message
signal
 In a practical digital communication receiver, there are also
additional sub-blocks such as channel estimation,
synchronization (frame/frequency/phase), etc…

6
Modulation + Demodulation
 Modulation is the process of encoding information from a
message source in a manner suitable for transmission
 May be done by varying amplitude, phase, frequency, or a
combination of a carrier signal in accordance with the
amplitude of the message (or modulating) signal
 Modulation translates a base-band message signal to a
band-pass signal
 Analogue and digital modulation (this chapter focuses digital
modulation techniques)

 Demodulation: Process of extracting the baseband

message

7
Modulation + Demodulation

8
Some Benefits of Modulation
1. Easy radiation
 Antennas operate effectively when antenna size is comparable
to the wavelength 

2. Frequency matching
 Modulation shifts the spectral of a message signal so as to fit
the frequency band of the channel

3. Multiplexing
 Accommodation for simultaneous transmission of several
baseband signals

9
Overview
 Introduction
 Digital modulation techniques
 Types of digital modulation techniques
 Power and bandwidth efficiency
 Modulation techniques
 Modulation performance in fading channels

10
Digital Modulation – Types
 Influence one or more of the three parameters of a
sinusoidal signal according to the data sequence to be
transmitted
 Amplitude modulation (AM)
 Or: Amplitude shift keying
 Simple, susceptible to errors

 Frequency modulation (FM)

 Or: Frequency shift keying

 Phase modulation (PM)

 Or: Phase shift keying
 More complex, more robust
against distortions

11
Advanced Phase Shift Keying
 BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying) Q

 Bit value 0: sine wave

 Bit value 1: inverted sine wave 1 0
I

 Very simple PSK

 Low spectral efficiency 10 Q 11
 Robust, used e.g. in satellite systems
 QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) I

 2 bits coded as one symbol

 Symbol determines shift of sine wave 00 01

 Less bandwidth compared to BPSK for A

same rate (Nyquist!)
 More complex t
 Often also transmission of relative, not
absolute phase shift: DQPSK – Differential 11 10 00 01
QPSK (IS-136, PHS)
12
M-ary PSK
 We can further increase the number of bits per symbol by
increase the number of possible phase shifts
 This increases the data rate without increasing bandwidth
 Example: 8-PSK

13
M-ary PSK …
 Example: 16-PSK: We could further increase to 4
bits/symbol using

 To demodulate 16-PSK, the receiver must determine the

phase within 11.250

14
Noise Effect
 Like all transmissions, the received signal will be degraded
by noise

 BPSK receiver makes a decision to determine the phase of a

received signal to determine the corresponding binary signal

15
Noise Effect …
 Consider the same noise for 8-PSK

16
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)
 Combines amplitude and phase modulation
 It is possible to code n bits using one symbol
 Bit error rate increases with n, but less errors compared to
comparable PSK schemes

Q
0010  Example: 16-QAM (4 bits = 1 symbol)
0001
 Symbols 0011 and 0001 have the same
0011 0000 phase φ, but different amplitude a.
φ
a I  0000 and 1000 have different phase, but
1000 same amplitude.
! Used in standard 9600 bit/s modems

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Hierarchical Modulation
 DVB-T: two separate data streams onto a single stream
 High Priority (HP) embedded within a Low Priority (LP) stream
 Multi carrier system, about 2000 or 8000 carriers
 QPSK, 16 QAM, 64QAM

 Example: 64QAM Q

 Good reception: resolve the entire

64QAM constellation
 Poor reception, mobile reception: 10

resolve only QPSK portion I

 6 bit per QAM symbol, 2 most

significant determine QPSK
00
 HP service coded in QPSK (2 bit), LP
000010 010101
uses remaining 4 bit

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Digital Modulation – Advantages
 Greater noise immunity and robustness to channel
impairments
 Perform well in multipath and fading conditions

 Easier multiplexing of various forms of information (voice,

data, video)
 Greater security
 Allow signal conditioning and processing techniques
 Error-control codes: Detect and/or correct transmission errors
 Equalization: to improve the performance of the overall
communication link
 Source coding
 Encryption
 Possible to be implemented completely in software

19
Overview
 Introduction
 Digital modulation techniques
 Types of digital modulation
 Power and bandwidth efficiency
 Modulation performance in AWGN
 Modulation performance in fading channels

20
Digital Modulation – Factors Influencing Choice
 Power and energy efficiencies
 Provides low BER at low received SNR

 Bandwidth efficiency
 Occupy a minimum of bandwidth
 Easy and cost-effective to implement
 Depending on the demands of the particular application,
tradeoffs are made when selecting a digital modulation
 Performance measure for a modulation scheme include
 Power efficiency
 Bandwidth efficiency

21
Power (Energy) Efficiency, P
 Describes the ability of a modulation technique to preserve
the fidelity of the digital message at low power levels
 Fidelity: an acceptable bit error probability

 Often expressed as E N required at the receiver input for a

b
0

certain probability of error (say 10-5)

 where
Eb: signal energy per bit and
N0: noise power spectral density
 Power efficiency measures how favorably the tradeoff
between fidelity and signal power is made

22
Bandwidth Efficiency, B
 Describes the ability of a modulation scheme to
accommodate data within a limited bandwidth & measured
in bps/Hz
 Defined as the ratio of the throughput data rate per Hertz in
a given bandwidth, i.e.,
data rate
R (bps)
B 
B (Hz) bandwidth

 It reflects how efficiently the allocated bandwidth is utilized

 System capacity of a digital mobile communication system
is directly related to the bandwidth efficiency of the
modulation scheme

23
Bandwidth Efficiency …
 A fundamental upper bound on achievable bandwidth
efficiency is stated by Shannon’s theorem
 The theorem states: “For an arbitrarily small probability of
error, the maximum possible bandwidth efficiency is limited by
the noise in the channel”
 This capacity is given by
C S
ηBmax   log 2 (1  )
B N
 where
C is the channel capacity in bps,
B is the RF bandwidth, and
S/N is the signal-to-noise ratio

24
Bandwidth Efficiency …
 Example: If the SNR of a wireless communication link is 20
dB and the RF bandwidth is 30 kHz, determine the
maximum theoretical data rate that can be transmitted.
 Solution:
SNR=20 dB=100, Bandwidth B=30000 Hz, hence
C = Blog2 (1+S/N) = 30000log2(1+100) = 199.75 kbps

25
Bandwidth Efficiency - GSM System
 Example: What is the theoretical maximum data rate that
can be supported in a 200 kHz channel for SNR=10 dB
and 30 dB? How does this compare to the GSM standard?

 Solution: SNR=10 dB=10, B=200 kHz,

C = Blog2 (1+S/N) = 200000log2(1+10) = 691.886 kbps
 GSM data rate is 270.833 kbps, which is about 40 % of the
theoretical limit for 10 dB SNR conditions
 Bandwidth efficieny = 270/200 =1.35bits/sec/Hz

 For SNR=30 dB=1000, B=200 kHz,

C = Blog2 (1+S/N) = 200000log2(1+1000) = 1.99 Mbps

26
Bandwidth Efficiency - IS-54 Systems
 IS-54 North American Digital Cellular
 Data Rate = 48kb/s, bandwidth = 30kHz
 Bandwidth Efficiency = 48/30 =1.6bits/sec/Hz
 Modulation: /4 DPSK

27
Bandwidth vs. Power Efficiency
 In the design of a digital communication system, there is a
tradeoff between bandwidth efficiency and power efficiency
 Example:
 Adding error coding to a message,
bandwidth efficiency , but reduces the required power for a
particular bit error rate

 On the other hand, higher level modulation scheme (M-ary keying),

bandwidth efficiency , but increase the required received power

28
Comparison of Modulation Types

Modulation Bandwidth log2(C/B)

Format efficiency C/B
16 PSK 4 2
16 QAM 4 2
8 PSK 3 1.6
4 PSK 2 1
4 QAM 2 1
BFSK 1 0
BPSK 1 0

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Theoretical bandwidth efficiency limits

Modulation formats Bandwidth efficiency

limits

MSK 1 bit/second/Hz
BPSK 1 bit/second/Hz
QPSK 2 bits/second/Hz
8PSK 3 bits/second/Hz
16 QAM 4 bits/second/Hz
32 QAM 5 bits/second/Hz
64 QAM 6 6 bits/second/Hz
256 QAM 8 bits/second/Hz

 Note that these figures cannot actually be achieved in

practical radios since they require perfect modulators,
demodulators, filter, and transmission paths

30
Overview
 Introduction
 Digital modulation techniques
 Modulation performance in AWGN
 Modulation performance in fading channels

31
Modulation – Summary of BER and SER in AWGN
 Summary of probability of bit and symbol error formulas

32
M-PSK – Performance over AWGN Channel …
 Error rate degrades as
M increases
 Spectral efficiency
increases as M
increases
 Note: at 16dB, error
rate for 16-PSK is 10-4

33
M-QAM – Performance over AWGN Channel
 Power efficiency
decreases with
increasing M, but
not early as fast as
M-PSK
 Note: at 12.5, error
rate for 16-QAM
is 10-4
 Spectral efficiency
increases as M
increases

34
M-FSK – Performance over AWGN Channel
 As M increases,
power efficiency
improves, i.e., less
Eb is required
 For M = 2, BFSK
requires 3 dB more
energy/bit to
achieve the same
BER s BPSK
 In other words, BPSK
is 3 dB more power
efficient that BFSK

35
Performance Comparison of Various Modulation
 Comparison of Various Digital Modulation Schemes
(BER = 10-6)

36
Overview
 Introduction
 Digital modulation techniques
 Modulation performance in AWGN
 Modulation performance in fading channel

37
Modulation Performance - Fading Channels
 BER gives a good performance indicator
 However, it does not provide information about the type of error,
e.g., incident or bursty error
 Alternative measure: Outage probability
 In fading channel, signals will suffer deep fades which leads to
outage or a complete loss of signal

 BER and outage probability can be evaluated using

analytically or simulation
 Slow, flat fading channels - easier to analyze
 Frequency selective channel - done using simulation

 Eb/N0 is used as it provides a good comparison of “power

efficiency” of a modulation scheme
 Sometimes called SNR per bit

38
Performance - Slow, Flat Fading Channels
 Slow, flat fading channels
 Change much slower than the applied modulation
 The attenuation and phase shift of the signal is constant over at
least one symbol interval

 Flat fading causes multiplicative (gain) variation of

transmitted signal s(t)
 The received signal r(t) expressed as

 Where (t) is channel gain, (t) is the phase shift of the channel
and n(t) is the Gaussian noise

 Coherent or noncoherent matched filters can be used

depending on knowledge of (t)

39
Performance - Slow, Flat Fading Channels …
 Error probability in AWGN
 Can be viewed as a conditional error probability, where the
condition is that  is fixed
 The probability of error in fading channel is obtained as

Pe   Pe ( X ) p ( X )dX
0

 Where Pe(X) is probability of error for an arbitrary modulation at a

specific SNR X= 2Eb/N0 and p(x) is the PDF of X

 For Rayleigh fading channels,  has Rayleigh distribution

so that 2 and X have a chi-square distribution
1  X
p( X )  exp   X 0
  
 Where
Eb 2
  is the average SNR
N0

40
Performance - Slow, Flat Fading Channels …
 For a particular modulation, using the probability of error
scheme in AWGN, the probability of error in slow fading
channel can be evaluated
 For coherent BPSK and BFSK

 For DPSK and orthogonal noncoherent FSK channels

41
Performance - Slow, Flat Fading Channels …
 Error performance of binary modulations in a Rayleigh, flat
fading channels as compared to AWGN

Wireless Communications - Ch. 5 – Modulation

42
Performance - Slow, Flat Fading Channels …
 For large values of Eb/N0 (i.e., large values of X) the error
probability equations may be simplified as

 Error rate is inversely proportional to 

 Achieve a diversity order of one

43
Performance - Frequency Selective Channels
 Frequency selective fading and time-varying Doppler
spread cause an irreducible BER floor
 Because of ISI and spectral spreading
 These factors impose bounds on data rate and BER
 Simulation is the major tool used to analyze such channels

44
Performance - Frequency Selective Channels …
 Irreducible BER for different
modulation with coherent
detection for a channel with
a Gaussian shaped power Worse
delay profile
 Normalized rms delay
d =  / Ts
 BPSK is best
Best

45
Performance - Frequency Selective Channels …
 New normalized rms
delay is defined in terms
of bit period instead of
symbol period as
d’ =  / Tb
 4-level modulations
QPSK, OQPSK, MSK are
better than BPSK
 More resistant to delay
spread than BPSK
 8-ary keying are less
resistant to 4-ary keying
 4-ary keying is used in 3rd
generation networks
46
Performance of π/4 DQPSK in Fading and Interference
 BER of π/4 DQPSK in a
slow, flat fading channel
corrupted by co-channel
interference and AWGN
 fc=850MHz, fs=24ksps,
raised cosine roll-off factor
=0.2
 Carrier-to-noise ratio C/N =
(1) 20dB, (2) 30dB (3) 40dB
(4) 50dB (6) infinity
 Interference and fading
dominated regions
 Note: Irreducible error floor

47
π/4 DQPSK Performance in Flat + Doppler Channels
 BER vs Eb/N0 for π/4 DQPSK in flat, Rayleigh fading
channel for various mobile speed

Error floor

48
Performance of π/4 DQPSK in ISI + Doppler Channels
 10-2 BER is needed for
modem speech coders
to work properly
 At /T=0.2, BER is 10-2
and link is unusable
even when the delayed
ray is 10dB below the
main link
 For /T=0.1, BER is
below 10-2 even when
the 2nd ray is equal in
power to the 1st

49
Background: Criteria for Choosing a Modulation Scheme

50
Modulation Schemes in Current Systems

51
Tradeoffs between BER, power and bandwidth
1. Trade BER performance
for power – fixed data rate
2. Trade data rate for power
– fixed BER
3. Trade BER for data rate –
fixed power

52
Modulation Summary
 Phase Shift Keying is often used, as it provides a highly
bandwidth efficient modulation scheme
 QPSK, modulation is very robust, but requires some form
of linear amplification
 High level M-ary schemes (such as 64-QAM) are very
bandwidth efficient, but more susceptible to noise and
require linear amplification
 Coherent reception provides better performance than
differential, but requires a more complex receiver

53