3/10/2014

Digital Transmission
Fundamentals
&
Digital Modulation Comparisons
Prof. Dr. Said E. El-Khamy,
Life Fellow IEEE
Email: elkhamy@ieee.org

Digital Networks
Digital transmission enables networks to
support many services
TV

E-mail

Telephone

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Digitization of Analog Signal

Sample analog signal in time and amplitude
Find closest approximation
Original signal

3 bits / sample

Sample value

7D/2
5D/2
3D/2
D/2

Approximation

-D/2
-3D/2
-5D/2
-7D/2

Rs = Bit rate = # bits/sample x # samples/second

Bit Rate of Digitized Signal

Bandwidth Ws Hertz: how fast the
signal changes
Higher bandwidth more frequent samples
Nyquist sampling rate = Minimum sampling rate
fNQST=fsmin= 2 x Ws

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Example: Voice & Audio

Telephone voice
Ws = 4 kHz
8000 samples/sec
8 bits/sample
Rs=8 x 8000 = 64 kbps
Cellular phones use more
powerful compression
algorithms: 8-12 kbps

CD Audio
Ws = 22 kHz
44000 samples/sec
16 bits/sample
Rs=16 x 44000= 704 kbps per
audio channel
MP3 uses more powerful
compression algorithms: 50
kbps per audio channel

Digital Video Signals

Type

Method

Format

H.261

Original Compressed

Video
Conference
Full
Motion

176x144 or
352x288 pix
@10-30 fr/sec
MPEG2 720x480 pix
@30 fr/sec

2-36
Mbps

64-1544 kbps

249
Mbps

2-6 Mbps

HDTV

MPEG2 1920x1080 pix

@30 fr/sec

1.6
Gbps

19-38 Mbps

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Bit Rates of Digital Transmission Systems

System

Bit Rate

Observations

Telephone
twisted pair

33.6-56 kbps

4 kHz telephone channel

Ethernet
twisted pair

10 Mbps, 100 Mbps,

1 Gbps

100 meters of unshielded

twisted copper wire pair

Cable modem 500 kbps-4 Mbps

Shared CATV return channel

ADSL

Coexists with analog

telephone signal

64-640 kbps in, 1.5366.144 Mbps out

2.4 GHz radio 2-11 Mbps

IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN

28 GHz radio

1.5-45 Mbps

5 km multipoint radio

Optical fiber

2.5-10 Gbps

1 wavelength

Optical fiber

>1600 Gbps

Many wavelengths

Pulse Transmission Rate

Nyquist Rate
Objective: Maximize pulse rate through a
channel, that is, make T as small as possible
Channel
T

If input is a narrow pulse, then typical output is a

spread-out pulse with ringing
Question: How frequently can these pulses be
transmitted without interfering with each other?
Answer: 2 x B pulses/second
where B is the bandwidth of the channel

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Multilevel Pulse Transmission

Assume channel of bandwidth B, and transmit 2B pulses/sec
(without interference)
If pulses amplitudes are either -A or +A (i.e. binary transmission
with m=2), then each pulse conveys 1 bit, so
Rb= Bit Rate = 1 bit/pulse x 2B pulses/sec = 2B bps
If amplitudes are from {-A, -A/3, +A/3, +A}, then bit rate is 2 x 2B
bps
By going to M = 2m amplitude levels (Mary transmission), we
achieve
Bit Rate = m bits/pulse x 2B pulses/sec = 2mB bps. i.e.
Rb = 2 log2(M) B bps
In the absence of noise, the bit rate can be increased without limit by increasing m

Noise & Reliable Communications

All physical systems have noise
Electrons always vibrate at non-zero temperature
Motion of electrons induces noise

Presence of noise limits accuracy of

measurement of received signal amplitude
Errors occur if signal separation is comparable to
noise level
Bit Error Rate (BER) increases with decreasing
signal-to-noise ratio
Noise places a limit on how many amplitude
levels can be used in pulse transmission

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Examples of Channels
Channel
Telephone voice
channel
Copper pair
Coaxial cable
5 GHz radio
(IEEE 802.11)
Optical fiber

Bandwidth

Bit Rates

3 kHz

33 kbps

1 MHz

1-6 Mbps

500 MHz
(6 MHz channels)
300 MHz
(11 channels)
Many TeraHertz

30 Mbps/
channel
54 Mbps /
channel
40 Gbps /
wavelength

Shannon Capacity Theorem

Chanel Capacity:
The maximum data rate that can be reliably transmitted
over a communication channel is known as the channel
capacity.

Rmax=C bits/sec
Capacity of Additive White Gaussian Noise Channels
(AWGN) of Limited Bandwidth
Consider a band-limited communication system of bandwidth
B and in the presence of white noise of PSD No.
The noise power is equal to N = NoB.
C/B is known as the Spectral
(or Bandwidth) Efficiency
with units bits/sec/Hz

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Example
Find the Shannon channel capacity for a
telephone channel with Wc = 3400 Hz and SNR
= 10000 (40 dB)
C = 3400 log2 (1 + 10000)
= 3400 log10 (10001)/log102 = 45200 bps
Note that SNR = 10000 corresponds to
SNR (dB) = 10 log10(10000) = 40 dB

Capacity of Digital systems

There is an equivalent expression for the signal-to-noise ratio described in
terms of the average bit energy Eb and the transmission rate R.
If R = C then:

The Shannon limit can be now analyzed from the bandwidth

efficiency equation

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Shannon Bound

This value is usually called the Shannon limit. This is a performance

bound on the value of the ratio Eb/N0, using a rather sophisticated
coding technique, and for which the channel bandwidth and the code
length n are very large. This means that if the ratio Eb/N0 is kept
slightly higher than this value, it is possible to have error free
transmission by means of the use of such a sophisticated coding
technique.
Note that

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A Review of Digital
Modulation Fundamentals

Coherent and Non-Coherent Techniques

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In wireless communications, it is important to select

MODEM based on the following requirements
High Spectral Efficiency
High Power Efficiency
High Fading Immunity
These factors are affected by baseband pulse shape and
phase transition characteristics of the signal.
Practical Modulation Schemes
FM : AMPS
MSK : CT2
GMSK : GSM, DCS 1800, CT3, DECT
QPSK : NADC (CDMA) - base transmitter
OQPSK : NADC (CDMA) - mobile transmitter
4-DQPSK : NADC (TDMA), PDC (Japan), PHP (Japan)
MPSK : (some wireless LANs - EDGE)

More Systems
MSK,GMSK
PSK
QPSK,PI/4 DPSKMOQPSK
FSK,GFSK
8PSK

16 QAM
32 QAM
OFDM

GSM
CABLE MODEMS
SATELLITE,CDMA,IS 95
TELEPHONE CALLER ID
EDGE,MONITORING
BROADBAND VIDEO
SYSTEMS
MICROWAVE DIGITAL
RADIO,MODEMS
TERRISTAL MICROWAVE
ADSL,SDSL,VDSL,WIMAX,WIF
I(A,G,N)

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Probability of Error Curve for BASK/BFSK and BPSK

M-ary Signaling/Modulation

In binary data transmission, send only one

of two possible signals during each bit
interval Tb .
In M-ary data transmission, send one of M
possible signals during each symbol
interval Ts .
The transmitter considers k bits at a times
.It produces one of M signals where M = 2k
.Each of the M signals is called a symbol.
Thus, we have M-ary ASK, M-ary FSK, Mary PSK digital modulation schemes.
M-ary schemes are more bandwidth
efficient, but more susceptible to
noise.

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Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK)

Q

I
I

Carrier phases
{0, /2, , 3/2}

Carrier phases
{/4, 3/4, 5/4, 7/4}

4-PSK signal constellation diagrams

Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) has twice

the bandwidth efficiency of BPSK since 2 bits are
transmitted in a single modulation symbol.

M-ary Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (M-QAM)

An M-ary quadrature shift keying (M-QAM) signal

can be defined by

for i = 0, 1, ..., M - 1.

16-QAM signal constellation diagram

4-QAM signal constellation diagram

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Digital Modulation
Comparisons

COMPARISON OF MODULATION TYPES:

1- Bandwidth Efficiency

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Bandwidth Efficiency Comparisons

Modulation
Format

16 PSK
16 QAM
8 PSK
4 PSK
4 QAM
BFSK
BPSK

Bandwidth
efficiency C/B

Log2(C/B)

4
4
3
2
2
1
1

2
2
1.6
1
1
0
0

2. Error Performance and

Power Efficiency Comparison

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Mary Modulation Error Probabilities

Symbol Error Probability of M-FSK

Symbol Error Probability of M-PSK

Symbol Error Probability of M-QAM

MATLAB SIMULATIONS

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MPSK
ber = berawgn(EbNo,'psk',M)

MQAM
ber = berawgn(EbNo,'qam',M)

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Non coherent MFSK

ber = berawgn(EbNo,'fsk',M)

3. Digital
Modulation
Comparison based
on Shannon Capacity

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Spectral Efficiencies in practical Systems

GSM- Digital Cellular
Data Rate = 270kb/s, bandwidth = 200kHz
Bandwidth Efficiency = 270/200 =1.35bits/sec/Hz
Modulation: Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (FSK with
orthogonal frequencies).
Gaussian refers to filter response.

IS-54 North American Digital Cellular

Data Rate = 48kb/s, bandwidth = 30kHz
Bandwidth Efficiency = 48/30 =1.6bits/sec/Hz
Modulation: p/4 DPSK

References
1. B. Sklar, Digital Communications Fundamentals and Application,
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1988.
3. A. Bateman, Digital Communications Design for the Real World,
Addison-Wesley, 1988
4. J. G. Proakis, Digital Communications, 3rd Edition, McGraw-Hill, 1994.
5. J. G. Proakis and Masoud Salehi, Communication Systems Engineering,
Prentice-Hall, 1994
6. Shannon, C. E., A mathematical theory of communication, Bell Syst.
Tech. J., vol. 27, pp. 379423, 623656, July and October 1948.
7. Carlson, B., Communication Systems: An Introduction to Signals and
Noise in Electrical Communication, 3rd Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York,
1986.

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