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Spread spectrum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spread-spectrum techniques are methods by which a signal (e.g. Passband modulation techniques
an electrical, electromagnetic, or acoustic signal) generated in a Analog modulation
particular bandwidth is deliberately spread in the frequency
AM · SSB · QAM · FM · PM · SM
domain, resulting in a signal with a wider bandwidth. These
techniques are used for a variety of reasons, including the Digital modulation
establishment of secure communications, increasing resistance to FSK · MFSK · ASK · OOK · PSK · QAM
natural interference and jamming, to prevent detection, and to limit MSK · CPM · PPM · TCM
power flux density (e.g. in satellite downlinks). OFDM · SC-FDE
Spread spectrum
CSS · DSSS · FHSS · THSS
Contents See also: Demodulation, modem,
1 History line coding, PAM, PWM, PCM
1.1 Frequency hopping
1.2 Commercial use
2 Spread-spectrum telecommunications Multiplex
2.1 Notes techniques
3 Spread-spectrum clock signal generation
4 See also Circuit mode
(constant bandwidth)
5 Notes
6 Sources TDM · FDM · SDM
Polarization multiplexing
7 External links
Spatial multiplexing (MIMO)

Statistical multiplexing
(variable bandwidth)
History
Packet mode · Dynamic TDM
FHSS · DSSS
Frequency hopping OFDMA · SC-FDM · MC-SS

The concept of frequency hopping was first alluded to in the 1903 U.S. Patent Related topics
723,188 (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=723188) and U.S. Patent 725,605 Channel access methods
(http://www.google.com/patents?vid=725605) filed by Nikola Tesla in July 1900. Media Access Control (MAC)
Tesla came up with the idea after demonstrating the world's first radio-controlled
submersible boat in 1898, when it became apparent the wireless signals
controlling the boat needed to be secure from "being disturbed, intercepted, or
interfered with in any way." His patents covered two fundamentally different techniques for achieving immunity to
interference, both of which functioned by altering the carrier frequency or other exclusive characteristic. The first
had a transmitter that worked simultaneously at two or more separate frequencies and a receiver in which each of
the individual transmitted frequencies had to be tuned in, in order for the control circuitry to respond. The second
technique used a variable-frequency transmitter controlled by an encoding wheel that altered the transmitted
frequency in a predetermined manner. These patents describe the basic principles of frequency hopping and
frequency-division multiplexing, and also the electronic AND-gate logic circuit.

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Frequency hopping is also mentioned in radio pioneer Jonathan Zenneck's book Wireless Telegraphy (German,
1908, English translation McGraw Hill, 1915), although Zenneck himself states that Telefunken had already tried it
several years earlier. Zenneck's book was a leading text of the time, and it is likely that many later engineers were
aware of it. A Polish engineer, Leonard Danilewicz, came up with the idea in 1929.[1] Several other patents were
taken out in the 1930s, including one by Willem Broertjes (Germany 1929, U.S. Patent 1,869,695
(http://www.google.com/patents?vid=1869695) , 1932). During World War II, the US Army Signal Corps was
inventing a communication system called SIGSALY for communication between Roosevelt and Churchill, which
incorporated spread spectrum, but due to its top secret nature, SIGSALY's existence did not become known until
the 1980s.

The most celebrated invention of frequency hopping was that of actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George
Antheil, who in 1942 received U.S. Patent 2,292,387 (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=2292387) for their
"Secret Communications System". Lamarr had learned at defense meetings she had attended with her former
husband Friedrich Mandl that radio-guided missiles' signals could easily be jammed [2]. The Antheil–Lamarr version
of frequency hopping used a piano-roll to change among 88 frequencies, and was intended to make radio-guided
torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or to jam. The patent came to light during patent searches in the 1950s
when ITT Corporation and other private firms began to develop Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), a
civilian form of spread spectrum, though the Lamarr patent had no direct impact on subsequent technology. It was
in fact ongoing military research at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Magnavox Government & Industrial Electronics
Corporation, ITT and Sylvania Electronic Systems that led to early spread-spectrum technology in the 1950s.
Parallel research on radar systems and a technologically similar concept called "phase coding" also had an impact
on spread-spectrum development.

Commercial use

The 1976 publication of Spread Spectrum Systems by Robert Dixon, ISBN 0-471-21629-1, was a significant
milestone in the commercialization of this technology. Previous publications were either classified military reports or
academic papers on narrow subtopics. Dixon's book was the first comprehensive unclassified review of the
technology and set the stage for increasing research into commercial applications.

Initial commercial use of spread spectrum began in the 1980s in the US with three systems: Equatorial
Communications System's very small aperture (VSAT) satellite terminal system for newspaper newswire services,
Del Norte Technology's radio navigation system for navigation of aircraft for crop dusting and similar applications,
and Qualcomm's OmniTRACS (http://www.qualcomm.com/qwbs/solutions/prodserv/omnitracs.shtml) system for
communications to trucks. In the Qualcomm and Equatorial systems, spread spectrum enabled small antennas that
viewed more than one satellite to be used since the processing gain of spread spectrum eliminated interference. The
Del Norte system used the high bandwidth of spread spectrum to improve location accuracy.

In 1981, the Federal Communications Commission started exploring ways to permit more general civil uses of
spread spectrum in a Notice of Inquiry docket. [3]. This docket was proposed to FCC and then directed by
Michael Marcus of the FCC staff. The proposals in the docket were generally opposed by spectrum users and
radio equipment manufacturers, although they were supported by the then Hewlett-Packard Corp. The laboratory
group supporting the proposal would later become part of Agilent.

The May 1985 decision [4] in this docket permitted unlicensed use of spread spectrum in 3 bands at powers up to 1
Watt. FCC said at the time that it would welcome additional requests for spread spectrum in other bands.The
resulting rules, now codified as 47 CFR 15.247[5] permitted Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and many other products including
cordless telephones. These rules were then copied in many other countries. Qualcomm was incorporated within 2
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months after the decision to commercialize CDMA.

Spread-spectrum telecommunications
This is a technique in which a (telecommunication) signal is transmitted on a bandwidth considerably larger than the
frequency content of the original information.

Spread-spectrum telecommunications is a signal structuring technique that employs direct sequence, frequency
hopping, or a hybrid of these, which can be used for multiple access and/or multiple functions. This technique
decreases the potential interference to other receivers while achieving privacy. Spread spectrum generally makes
use of a sequential noise-like signal structure to spread the normally narrowband information signal over a relatively
wideband (radio) band of frequencies. The receiver correlates the received signals to retrieve the original
information signal. Originally there were two motivations: either to resist enemy efforts to jam the communications
(anti-jam, or AJ), or to hide the fact that communication was even taking place, sometimes called low probability of
intercept (LPI).

Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS), direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS), time-hopping spread
spectrum (THSS), chirp spread spectrum (CSS), and combinations of these techniques are forms of spread
spectrum. Each of these techniques employs pseudorandom number sequences — created using pseudorandom
number generators — to determine and control the spreading pattern of the signal across the alloted bandwidth.
Ultra-wideband (UWB) is another modulation technique that accomplishes the same purpose, based on transmitting
short duration pulses. Wireless Ethernet standard IEEE 802.11 uses either FHSS or DSSS in its radio interface.

Notes
Techniques known since 1940s and used in military communication system since 1950s
"Spread" radio signal over a wide frequency range several magnitudes higher than minimum requirement. The
core principle of spread spectrum is the use of noise-like carrier waves, and, as the name implies,
bandwidths much wider than that required for simple point-to-point communication at the same data rate.
Two main techniques:
Direct sequence (DS)
Frequency hopping (FH)
Resistance to jamming (interference). DS is better at resisting continuous-time narrowband jamming, while
FH is better at resisting pulse jamming. In DS systems, narrowband jamming affects detection performance
about as much as if the amount of jamming power is spread over the whole signal bandwidth, when it will
often not be much stronger than background noise. By contrast, in narrowband systems where the signal
bandwidth is low, the received signal quality will be severely lowered if the jamming power happens to be
concentrated on the signal bandwidth.
Resistance to eavesdropping. The spreading code (in DS systems) or the frequency-hopping pattern (in FH
systems) is often unknown by anyone for whom the signal is unintended, in which case it "encrypts" the signal
and reduces the chance of an adversary's making sense of it. What's more, for a given noise power spectral
density (PSD), spread-spectrum systems require the same amount of energy per bit before spreading as
narrowband systems and therefore the same amount of power if the bitrate before spreading is the same, but
since the signal power is spread over a large bandwidth, the signal PSD is much lower, often significantly
lower than the noise PSD, therefore the adversary may be unable to determine if the signal exists at all.
However, for mission-critical applications, particularly those employing commercially available radios,

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spread-spectrum radios do not intrinsically provide adequate security; "...just using spread-spectrum radio
itself is not sufficient for communications security" [6]
Resistance to fading. The high bandwidth occupied by spread-spectrum signals offer some frequency
diversity, i.e. it is unlikely that the signal would encounter severe multipath fading over its whole bandwidth,
and in other cases the signal can be detected using e.g. a Rake receiver.
Multiple access capability. Multiple users can transmit simultaneously on the same frequency (range) as long
as they use different spreading codes. See CDMA.

Spread-spectrum clock signal generation

Spread-spectrum clock generation (SSCG) is used in some synchronous
digital systems, especially those containing microprocessors, to reduce
the spectral density of the electromagnetic interference (EMI) that these
systems generate. A synchronous digital system is one that is driven by a
clock signal and because of its periodic nature, has an unavoidably
narrow frequency spectrum. In fact, a perfect clock signal would have all
its energy concentrated at a single frequency and its harmonics, and
would therefore radiate energy with an infinite spectral density. Practical
synchronous digital systems radiate electromagnetic energy on a number
of narrow bands spread on the clock frequency and its harmonics,
resulting in a frequency spectrum that, at certain frequencies, can exceed
the regulatory limits for electromagnetic interference (e.g. those of the
FCC in the United States, JEITA in Japan and the IEC in Europe).
Spread spectrum of a modern
Spread-spectrum clocking avoids this problem by using one of the switching power supply (heating up
methods described in the Spread-spectrum telecommunications section in period) incl. waterfall diagram over a
order to reduce the peak radiated energy. The technique therefore few minutes. Recorded with a NF-
reshapes the system's electromagnetic emissions to comply with the 5030 EMC-Analyzer
electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) regulations. It is a popular technique
because it can be used to gain regulatory approval with only a simple
modification to the equipment.

Spread-spectrum clocking has become more popular in portable electronics devices because of faster clock speeds
and the increasing integration of high-resolution LCD displays in smaller and smaller devices. Because these devices
are designed to be lightweight and inexpensive, passive EMI reduction measures such as capacitors or metal
shielding are not a viable option. Active EMI reduction techniques such as spread-spectrum clocking are necessary
in these cases, but can also create challenges for designers. Principal among these is the risk that modifying the
system clock runs the risk of the clock/data misalignment.

It is important to note that this method does not reduce the total energy radiated by the system, and therefore does
not necessarily make the system less likely to cause interference. Spreading the energy over a large frequency band
effectively reduces the electrical and magnetic field strengths that are measured within a narrow window of
frequencies. Spread-spectrum clocking works because the measuring receivers used by EMC testing laboratories
divide the electromagnetic spectrum into frequency bands approximately 120 kHz wide.[7] If the system under test
were to radiate all of its energy at one frequency, it would register a large peak at the monitored frequency band.
Spread-spectrum clocking distributes the energy so that it falls into a large number of the receiver's frequency
bands, without putting enough energy into any one band to exceed the statutory limits. The usefulness of spread-

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spectrum clocking as a method of actually reducing interference is often debated, but it is probable that some
electronic equipment with sensitivity to a narrow band of frequencies will experience less interference, while other
equipment with broadband sensitivity will experience more interference.

FCC certification testing is often completed with the spread-spectrum function enabled in order to reduce the
measured emissions to within acceptable legal limits. However, some BIOS writers include the ability to disable
spread-spectrum clock generation as a user setting, thereby defeating the object of the EMI regulations. This may
be considered a loophole, but is generally overlooked as long as the default BIOS setting provided by the
manufacturer has the spread-spectrum feature enabled. An ability to disable spread-spectrum clocking for
computer systems is considered useful as the spread-spectrum techniques used can affect the maximum clockspeed
achievable by the components involved due to clock skew, affecting overclocking efforts.

See also
Direct-sequence spread spectrum
Open spectrum
Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)
Electromagnetic interference (EMI)
Frequency allocation
Frequency-hopping spread spectrum
Orthogonal variable spreading factor (OVSF)
Process gain
Spread-spectrum time-domain reflectometry
Time-hopping spread spectrum
HAVE QUICK military frequency-hopping UHF radio voice communication system

Notes
1. ^ Danilewicz later recalled: "In 1929 we proposed to the General Staff a device of my design for secret radio
telegraphy which fortunately did not win acceptance, as it was a truly barbaric idea consisting in constant
changes of transmitter frequency. The commission did, however, see fit to grant me 5,000 złotych for
executing a model and as encouragement to further work." Cited in Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How
the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War II, 1984,
p. 27.
2. ^ David Shier (2003-06-21). "The Hedy Lamarr Story"
(http://web.archive.org/web/20071014035401/http://bluetoothnews.com/hedy_lamarr_story.htm) . Archived
from the original (http://bluetoothnews.com/hedy_lamarr_story.htm) on 2007-10-14.
http://web.archive.org/web/20071014035401/http://bluetoothnews.com/hedy_lamarr_story.htm. Retrieved
2010-03-09.
3. ^ Notice of Inquiry, General Docket 81-413 (http://www.marcus-
spectrum.com/documents/SpreadSpectrumNOI.pdf)
4. ^ Authorization of Spread Spectrum Systems Under Parts 15 and 90 of the FCC Rules and Regulations
(http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/documents/81413RO.txt)
5. ^ 47 CFR 15.247 (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?
YEAR=current&TITLE=47&PART=15&SECTION=247&SUBPART=&TYPE=TEXT)
6. ^ William T., Shaw (2006). Cyber Security for SCADA Systems. Pennwell Books. p. 76.
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ISBN 1593700687, 9781593700683.
7. ^ American National Standard for Electromagnetic Noise and Field Strength Instrumentation, 10 Hz to 40
GHz—Specifications, ANSI C63.2-1996, Section 8.2 Overall Bandwidth

Sources
This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration
document "Federal Standard 1037C" (http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/fs-1037c.htm) (in support of
MIL-STD-188).
NTIA Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency Management
National Information Systems Security Glossary
History on spread spectrum, as given in "Smart Mobs, The Next Social Revolution", Howard Rheingold,
ISBN 0-7382-0608-3
Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read
by the Allies in World War Two, edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek, Frederick, MD,
University Publications of America, 1984, ISBN 0-89093-547-5.

External links
HF Frequency Hopping (http://hf-ssb-transceiver.at-communication.com/en/qmac/frequency_hopping.html)
HF VHF UHF Spread Spectrum Radio (http://hf-military-tactical-radio.at-
communication.com/en/rsi/rsi8100.html)
CDMA and spread spectrum (http://www.telecomspace.com/cdma.html)
Information about the use of spread spectrum for reduced AGP EMI
(http://www.rojakpot.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?Lang=0&bogno=114)
Civil spread spectrum history (http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/SSHistory.htm)
Spread Spectrum Scene newsletter (http://sss-mag.com/index.html)
http://cas.et.tudelft.nl/~glas/ssc/techn/ "The principles of Spread Spectrum communication", hosted on TU
Delft by Jack Glas
Presentations at 4/08 George Mason University conference on unlicensed spread spectrum history
(http://iep.gmu.edu/UnlicensedWireless)
Interview for the Indian press with Hedy Lamarr's (the inventor of spread spectrum) son, Anthony loder, on
the impact of her invention (http://www.hedylamarr.org/deccan_article.html)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_spectrum"
Categories: Channel access methods | Multiplexing | Radio frequency propagation | Radio resource management |
Radio modulation modes

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