ETI 2413

Digital Communication Principles

Lecture 2
By
Isaac Warutumo

ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

DIGITAL BAND-PASS MODULATION TECHNIQUES

In baseband data transmission, an incoming serial data stream is
represented in the form of a discrete pulse-amplitude modulated
wave that can be transmitted over a low-pass channel (e.g., a coaxial
cable).
In applications where there is need to transmit the data stream over
a band-pass channel, such as wireless and satellite channels, we
usually use a modulation strategy configured around a sinusoidal
carrier whose amplitude, phase, or frequency is varied in
accordance with the information-bearing data stream.
In this lecture, we will look at digital modulation techniques that
deal with band-pass data transmission.
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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

We will look at some important digital band-pass modulation
techniques used in practice. In particular, we describe three basic
modulation schemes: namely, amplitude-shift keying, phase-shift
keying, and frequency-shift keying, followed by some of their
variants.
Given a binary source that emits symbols 0 and 1, the modulation
process involves switching or keying the amplitude, phase, or
frequency of a sinusoidal carrier wave between a pair of possible
values in accordance with symbols 0 and 1.
Consider the sinusoidal carrier
c(t)=A ccos(2 f c t+c )
(1)
Where Ac is the carrier amplitude, fc is the carrier frequency, and c
is the carrier phase. Given these three parameters of the carrier
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c(t), we may now identify three distinct forms of binary
modulation:
o Binary amplitude shift-keying (BASK), in which the
carrier frequency and carrier phase are both maintained
constant, while the carrier amplitude is keyed between the
two possible values used to represent symbols 0 and 1.
o Binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), in which the carrier
amplitude and carrier frequency are both maintained constant,
while the carrier phase is keyed between the two possible
values (e.g., 0 and 180) used to represent symbols 0 and 1.
o Binary frequency-shift keying (BFSK), in which the
carrier amplitude and carrier phase are both maintained
constant, while the carrier frequency is keyed between the
two possible values used to represent symbols 0 and 1.
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 In light of these definitions, we see that BASK, BPSK, and BFSK are
special cases of amplitude modulation, phase modulation, and
frequency modulation, respectively.
BASK, BPSK, and BFSK share a common feature: all three of them
are examples of a band-pass process.
In the analog communications, the sinusoidal carrier is commonly
defined as in equation(1).
On the other hand, in the digital communications literature, the
usual practice is to assume that the carrier has unit energy measured
over one symbol (bit) duration. Specifically, we may define the
carrier amplitude as
2
(2)
Ac
Tb
Where Tb is the bit duration

ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

Using the terminology of Eq.(2), we may thus express the carrier
c(t) in the equivalent form

(3)

BINARY AMPLITUDE-SHIFT KEYING

Binary amplitude-shift keying (BASK) is one of the earliest forms of
digital modulation used in radio telegraphy at the beginning of the
twentieth century.
To formally describe BASK, consider a binary data stream which is
of the ONOFF signaling variety. That is defined by
Eb , for binary symbol 1
b(t )
(4)
0, for binary symbol 0
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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

2
(5)
c(t)=
cos(2 f c t+c )
Tb
Then, multiplying by the sinusoidal carrier c(t) with the phase set
equal to zero for convenience of presentation, we get the BASK
wave
(6)
s(t ) b(t )c(t )
2 Eb
cos(2 f ct ), for symbol 1

s (t ) Tb
(7)
0,
for symbol 0

The carrier frequency fc may have an arbitrary value, consistent

with transmitting the modulated signal anywhere in the
electromagnetic radio spectrum, so long as it satisfies the bond-pass
assumption (that the carrier frequency is large compared with the
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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

bandwidth of the incoming binary data stream that acts as the
modulating signal).
When bit duration is occupied by symbol 1, the transmitted signal
energy is Eb. When the bit duration is occupied by symbol 0, the
transmitted signal energy is zero. On this basis, we may express the
average transmitted signal energy as
E
(8)
Eav b
2
Generation of BASK Signals
From Equations (4)and(7), we see that a BASK signal is readily
generated by using a product modulator with two inputs. One
input, the ONOFF signal of Equation (4) is the modulating signal.

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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

2
The sinusoidal carrier wave c(t)=
cos(2 f c t+c ) supplies the
Tb
other input.

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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

Figure 1: The three basic forms of signaling binary information. (a) Binary data
stream. (b) Amplitude-shift keying. (c) Phase-shift keying. (d) Frequency-shift
keying with continuous phase.

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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

Detection of BASK Signals
A property of BASK that is immediately apparent from Figure 1(b),
which depicts the BASK waveform corresponding to the incoming
binary data stream of Figure 1(a), is the non-constancy of the
envelope of the modulated wave. Accordingly, insofar as detection
of the BASK wave is concerned, the simplest way is to use an
envelope detector, exploiting the non-constant envelope property
of the BASK signal.

BINARY PHASE-SHIFT KEYING (BPSK)

In the simplest form of phase-shift keying known as binary phaseshift keying (BPSK), the pair of signals s1(t) and s2(t) used to
represent symbols 1 and 0, respectively, are defined by

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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

2 Eb
cos(2 f c t),
for symbol0(i 1)

Tb
si (t )
2 Eb cos(2 f t+ ) 2 Eb cos(2 f t),for symbol 1(i 2)
c
c
T
T
b
b

(9)

Where 0 t Tb , with Tb denoting the bit duration and Eb denoting

the transmitted signal energy per bit; see the waveform of Figure
1(c) for a representation example of BPSK.
A pair of sinusoidal waves, S1(t) and S2(t) which differ only in a
relative phase-shift of radians as defined in equation (9), are referred
to as antipodal signals.
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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

BPSK differs from BASK in an important respect; the envelope of
the modulated signal s(t) is maintained constant at the value
2 Eb
for all time t. This property, which follows directly from
Tb
equation (9), has two important consequences:
o The transmitted energy per bit, is constant; equivalently, the
average transmitted power is constant.
o Demodulation of BPSK cannot be performed using envelope
detection; rather, we have to look to coherent detection as
described next.
Generation of BPSK Signals
We use a product modulator consisting of two components (see
Figure 2(a)):
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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

o Non-return-to-zero level encoder, whereby the input binary
data sequence is encoded in polar form with symbols 1 and 0
represented by the constant-amplitude levels: Eb and Eb ,
respectively
o Product modulator, which multiplies the level-encoded binary
wave by the sinusoidal carrier c(t) of amplitude 2
to
Tb
produce the BPSK signal.
The timing pulses used to generate the level-encoded binary wave
and the sinusoidal carrier wave are usually, but not necessarily,
extracted from a common master clock.

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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

Figure 2: (a) BPSK modulator. (b) Coherent detector for BPSK; for the sampler,
integer i 0, 1, 2, .

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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

Detection of BPSK Signals

To detect the original binary sequence of 1s and 0s, the BPSK signal
x(t) at the channel output is applied to a receiver that consists of
four sections, as depicted in Figure 2(b):
o Product modulator, which is also supplied with a locally
generated reference signal that is a replica of the carrier wave
c(t)
o Low-pass filter, designed to remove the double-frequency
components of the product modulator output (i.e., the
components centered on 2fc) and pass the zero-frequency
components.

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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

o Sampler, which uniformly samples the output of the low-pass
filter at t iTb where i 0, 1, 2,... ; the local clock
governing the operation of the sampler is synchronized with
the clock responsible for bit-timing in the transmitter.
o Decision-making device, which compares the sampled value of
the low-pass filters output to an externally supplied threshold,
every seconds. If the threshold is exceeded, the device decides
in favor of symbol 1; otherwise, it decides in favor of symbol 0.
The BPSK receiver described in Figure 2 is said to be coherent in
the sense that the sinusoidal reference signal applied to the product
modulator in the demodulator is synchronous in phase (and, of
course, frequency) with the carrier wave used in the modulator.

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ETI 2413 Digital Communication Principles

In addition to synchrony with respect to carrier phase, the receiver
also has an accurate knowledge of the interval occupied by each
binary symbol.

Exercises
1. The binary sequence 11100101 is applied to an ASK modulator. The bit
duration is microsecond and the sinusoidal carrier wave used to represent
symbol 1 has a frequency equal to 7 MHz.
a. Find the transmission bandwidth of the transmitted signal.
b. Plot the waveform of the transmitted ASK signal.
c. Assume that the line encoder and the carrier-wave oscillator are
controlled by a common clock.
2. Repeat Problem 1 above, assuming that the line encoder and the carrier-wave
generator operate independently of each other. Comment on your results.
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3. (a) Repeat Problem 1above for the case when the binary sequence
11100101 is applied to a PSK modulator, assuming that the line encoder
and sinusoidal carrier-wave oscillator are operated from a common clock.
(b) Repeat your calculations, assuming that the line encoder and carrierwave oscillator operate independently.

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