Chapter 4

Noise in continuous wave modulation

Part one
Contents
 Introduction to CW modulation
 Noise in AM modulation
 Mathematical representation
 Noise in DSB-WC
0  Noise DSB-SC
 Comparison of performance

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 Introduction
 The process performed by the transmitter to modify the massage signal is called
modulation, which involves varying some parameters of a carrier wave in
accordance with the massage signal.
 Modulation process are classified as
1. Continuous wave (CW) modulation
2. Pulse modulation
 In CW modulations a sinusoidal waves is used as a carrier.
 When the amplitude of the carrier is varied in accordance of the massage signal
we will have an amplitude modulation (AM).
 When the angle varied we have angle modulation.
1  It can be further classify as frequency modulation (FM) in which the instantaneous
frequency of the carrier is varied in accordance with the massage signal .
 Phase modulation (PM) in which the instantaneous phase of the carrier are varied
in accordance with the massage signal.

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 AM Modulation – Linear Modulation
 Amplitude Modulation is analog modulation.
 It is the process of changing the amplitude of a relatively high frequency carrier
signal in accordance with the amplitude of the modulating message signal.
 AM is a relatively inexpensive, low quality form of modulation
 Used for broadcasting of both audio and video signals.
 There are four types of AM:
1. DSB-with carrier
2. DSB-SC
3. SSB
4. Vestigial AM
2

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 DSB-with Carrier AM – Standard AM
 This is the form of modulation used for commercial AM broadcasting.
 The receiver is extremely simple
 Good for commercial applications, since radio receivers can be made very
cheaply.
 The power efficiency at the transmitter is very poor.
 Let the carrier is c(t )  Ac cos 2f c t and the massage signal is 𝑚(𝑡)

DSB-WC
𝑚(𝑡) s(𝑡)
modulator

𝑐(𝑡)

DSB-WC modulator block diagram

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 Cont.
 Mathematically, standard AM wave 𝑠(𝑡) is
s (t )  Ac [1  k a m(t )]cos 2f c t
   
envelop carrier

Where ka is modulation sensitivity

 The amplitude of the envelope, a(t) is given as

𝒂(𝒕) = 𝑨𝒄 [𝟏 + 𝒌𝒂 𝒎(𝒕)]
 The equation show that how 𝑠(𝑡) is varies in
accordance with the message signal 𝑚(𝑡).
 Here, we assume
k a m(t )  1
4

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 Cont.
 The envelop of the modulated wave has the same shape as the base band signal
𝑚(𝑡) provided two requirements are satisfied:
1. |𝑘𝑎 𝑚(𝑡)| < 1 for all t, this assure that 1 + 𝑘𝑎 𝑚(𝑡) > 0,
avoiding phase reversal of 𝑐(𝑡).
2. 𝑓𝑐 ≫ 𝑊 where W is the highest frequency component of 𝑚(𝑡).
Otherwise, the envelope cannot be visualized and hence, cannot be
detected satisfactorily.
Frequency Domain Description
 Let 𝒔(𝒕) ↔ 𝑺(𝒇) and 𝒎(𝒕) ↔ 𝑴(𝒇) be Fourier transform pairs and 𝑚(𝑡) be a band
limited signal, what does the spectrum 𝑆(𝑓) look like for a specific message
5 spectrum 𝑀(𝑓)?
 Rewriting the definition of s(t), we have
𝑺(𝒕) = 𝑨𝒄[𝟏 + 𝒌𝒂 𝒎(𝒕)] 𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟐𝒇𝒄 𝒕
= 𝑨𝒄𝒄𝒐𝒔𝟐𝒇𝒄𝒕 + 𝑨𝒄 𝒌𝒂 𝒎(𝒕) 𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟐𝒇𝒄 𝒕
Com System By Engineer Matios Z.
 Cont.
 The frequency domain representation of the first term is a set of -functions of
amplitude 𝐴𝑐/2 at frequencies  𝑓𝑐.
 Using the frequency-shifting property of the Fourier transform for the second
term, we have
𝑨𝒄𝒌𝒂
𝑨𝒄𝒌𝒂𝒎 𝒕 𝐜𝐨𝐬 𝟐 𝒇𝒄𝒕 ↔ [𝑴 𝒇 − 𝒇𝒄 + 𝑴 𝒇 + 𝒇𝒄 ]
𝟐
 This is an important result: multiplication of m(t) in the time domain by cos2fct shifts
M(f) upwards and downwards by fc Hz
 Combining these two terms together, we have:
𝑨𝒄 𝑨𝒄𝒌𝒂
𝑺 𝒇 = [𝜹 𝒇 − 𝒇𝒄 + 𝜹 𝒇 + 𝒇𝒄 ] + [𝑴 𝒇 − 𝒇𝒄 + 𝑴 𝒇 + 𝒇𝒄 ]
𝟐 𝟐
 This spectrum contains the message spectrum shifted upwards and downwards
6 𝑨𝒌
by fc, weighted by the factor 𝒄𝟐 𝒂 .
𝑨𝒄
 It also contains two delta-functions of weight at frequencies fc.
𝟐

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 Cont.
 These -functions are the most
predominant components
present, yet they carry no
information.
 Thus, we see that an AM
modulation is wasteful in terms of
the power of the overall
modulated signal to power in the
message component, i.e. M(f)
only.

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 Cont.
 The modulation index can be obtained as follow:
 By definition,
m  max k a m(t ) 

1
 Assuming ka 
Ac
 Taking the single-tone message signal m(t )  Am cos(2f m t )
 Modulation index m is
 Am cos(2f m t )  Am
8
m  max 
 A
 Ac  c
 In terms of voltages
Vmax  Vmin
m
Vmax  Vmin
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 Cont.
AM Power Distribution of a carrier modulated by a single-tone message signal
 The total power in the amplitude-modulated wave consists of the sum of three
components i.e the power in the carrier, in the USB and in the LSB.

Pc 
A c / 2 
2


Ac2
R R

PUSB  PLSB 
mA c /2 2 2


m 2 Ac2 m 2 Pc

R 8R 4

 m2 
Pt  Pc  PLSB  PUSB  1  P
 2  C

 The power in the side bands depends upon the value of the modulation index.
9 The greater the modulation index, the higher the sideband power.

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 Cont.
Efficiency of AM Transmitter
 The carrier doesn’t contain message, the message is in the side bands.
 Each side band contains the same information.
 Therefore, the efficiency of an AM signal is power in sidebands divided by the
total power.
PUSB  PLSB m2
  2
PT m 2

 This has a maximum value of 1/3 = 33.3%.

 Therefore, DSB-with carrier modulation has a very low efficiency.
10
 Another disadvantage is that it requires wide bandwidth BT  2W

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 DSB-SC AM modulator
 The carrier will suppressed and only the two side bands will transmit, it is able to
solve power waste but use same BW as DSB-WC AM modulation.

11

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 Noise in AM modulation
 We have be seen the characteristics of AM waves, now we will see the effect of
noise on those modulation schemes.
 The study is based on the model of noisy receiver under the following
consideration.
1. Channel model, which assumes the system is distortion less but perturbed by additive
white gaussian noise (AWGN)
2. Receiver model, which assume a receiver consists an ideal BPF followed by an ideal
demodulator.

12

Model of noisy receiver

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 Cont.
 𝑆(𝑡) is modulation dependent
 𝑊(𝑡) is a gaussian with an average power of 𝑁0 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 𝐵𝑊 measured at the front
end of the receiver.

 n(𝑡) is narrowband noise after the BPF (input of demodulator), which has the
average power of 𝑁0𝐵 T

13

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 Cont.
 The signal x(t) contains the modulated signal and a NB noise,

 A measure of the degree to which a signal is contaminated with additive noise is

the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)

14

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 Cont.
 Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is a measure of the degree to which a signal is
contaminated by noise.
 Assume that the only source of degradation in message signal quality is the
additive noise w(t).
 The signal-to-noise ratio at the demodulator input:
𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑠(𝑡)
𝑆𝑁𝑅𝑖 =
𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝐵 𝑛𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑛(𝑡)
 The signal-to-noise ratio at the demodulator output:
෣
𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑚(𝑡)
𝑆𝑁𝑅𝑜 =
𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝐵 𝑛𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑛(𝑡)
 SNRo is well defined only if the recovered message signal and noise appear
15 additively at demodulator output. This condition is:
1. Always valid for coherent demodulators
2. But is valid for non-coherent demodulators only if the input signal to- noise ratio (SNR)I is
high enough

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 Cont.
 Output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)O depends on:
1. Modulation scheme
2. Type of demodulator
 To get a fair comparison of CW modulation schemes and receiver configurations,
it must be made on an equal basis.
1. Modulated signal s(t) transmitted by each modulation scheme has the same average
power
2. Channel and receiver noise w(t) has the same average power measured in the
message bandwidth W
 According to the equal basis, the channel signal-to-noise ratio is defined as:

16

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 Cont.
 Noise performance of a given CW modulation scheme and a given type of
demodulator is characterized by the figure of merit.

 The higher the value of the figure of merit, the better the noise performance

17

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 Noise in Linear receiver using coherent detection
 When the carrier is suppressed we usually require the use of coherent detection in
which case the receiver is linear.
 On the other hands, when the AM includes transmission of carrier, demodulation is
accomplished simply by using an envelope detector in which the receiver is
nonlinear.
DSB-SC modulation (linear)
 The receiver use coherent detector.
 The use of coherent detection requires multiplication of the filtered signal 𝑥(𝑡) by
local generated sinusoidal wave cos(2𝜋𝑓𝑐 𝑡) and lowpass filtering the product.
 DSB-SC component of the filtered signal 𝑥(𝑡) is expressed as
𝐬 𝐭 = 𝐂𝐀𝐜 𝐜𝐨𝐬 𝟐𝛑𝐟𝐜 𝐭 𝐦(𝐭)
18
where C is system dependent scaling factor
 The purpose of C is to ensure that signal component s(t) is measured in the same
units as the additive noise component n(t).

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 Cont.
 We assume 𝑚(𝑡) is sample function of a stationary process of zero mean, whose
power spectrum density is limited to a maximum frequency W which is BW
massage signal.
 Average power P of the massage signal
𝑾
𝑷 = න 𝑺𝑴 𝒅𝒇
−𝑾

19

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 Cont.
 The average power of the modulated signal s(t) will be
𝒔 𝒕 = 𝑪𝑨𝒄 𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟐𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕 𝒎(𝒕)

𝑪𝟐 𝑨𝟐𝒄 𝑷
𝑷𝒔(𝒕) =
𝟐
 The NB noise average power
𝑷𝑵 = 𝑾𝑵𝟎
 Channel SNR will be
𝑷𝒔 𝒕 𝑪𝟐 𝑨𝟐𝒄 𝑷
𝑺𝑵𝑹𝒄 = =
𝑷𝑵 𝟐𝑾𝑵𝟎

20 Where 𝑐 2 is the numerator ensure that this ratio is dimensionless.

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 Cont.
 Product modulator output
𝒙 𝒕 =𝒔 𝒕 +𝒏 𝒕
= 𝑪𝑨𝒄 𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟐𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕 𝒎 𝒕 + 𝒏𝑰 𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟐𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕 − 𝒏𝑸 𝒕 𝒔𝒊𝒏 𝟐𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕
𝒗 𝒕 = 𝒙(𝒕) 𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟐𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕

𝟏 𝟏 𝟏
= 𝑪𝑨𝒄 𝒎 𝒕 + 𝒏𝑰 𝒕 + 𝑪𝑨𝒄 𝒎 𝒕 + 𝒏𝑰 𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟒𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕 − 𝒏𝑸 𝒕 𝒔𝒊𝒏 𝟒𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕
𝟐 𝟐 𝟐
 When it pass through LP filter
𝟏
𝒚 𝒕 = 𝑪𝑨𝒄 𝒎 𝒕 + 𝒏𝑰 𝒕
𝟐
 At the output the average power of information signal
21 𝟏 𝟐 𝟐
𝑷𝒎 = 𝑪 𝑨𝒄 𝑷
𝟒

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 Cont.
 Only in-phase component of the noise appears at the output.
 The average power of the noise of ½ 𝑛𝐼 (𝑡) is
𝟏 𝟏
𝑷𝑵 = (𝟐)𝟐 𝟐𝑾𝑵𝟎 = 𝟐 𝑾𝑵𝟎

 The output SNR is given by

𝑷𝒎 𝑪𝟐 𝑨𝟐𝒄 𝑷
𝑺𝑵𝑹𝒐 = =
𝑷𝑵 𝟐𝑾𝑵𝟎

 Figure of merit
𝑪𝟐 𝑨𝟐𝒄 𝑷
𝑺𝑵𝑹𝒐 𝟐𝑾𝑵𝟎
𝒇𝒊𝒈𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒕 = = =𝟏
𝑺𝑵𝑹𝒄 𝑪𝟐 𝑨𝟐𝒄 𝑷
22 𝟐𝑾𝑵𝟎

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 Noise in AM Receiver using Envelop Detection
 The receiver model will be

 The modulated signal is

𝑺(𝒕) = 𝑨𝒄 [𝟏 + 𝒌𝒂 𝒎(𝒕)] 𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟐𝒇𝒄 𝒕
 Average signal power
𝑨𝟐𝒄 [𝟏 + 𝒌𝒂 𝟐 𝑷]
𝑷𝒔(𝒕) =
𝟐
23  Average noise power
𝑷𝑵 = 𝑾𝑵𝟎
 Channel SNR is
𝑷𝒔 𝒕 𝑨𝟐𝒄 [𝟏 + 𝒌𝒂 𝟐 𝑷]
𝑺𝑵𝑹𝒄 = =
𝑷𝑵 𝟐𝑾𝑵𝟎
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 Cont.
 Filtered signal
𝒙 𝒕 =𝒔 𝒕 +𝒏 𝒕
= [𝑨𝒄 + 𝑨𝒄 𝒌𝒂 𝒎(𝒕) + 𝒏𝑰 𝒕 ]𝒄𝒐𝒔 𝟐𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕 − 𝒏𝑸 𝒕 𝒔𝒊𝒏 𝟐𝝅𝒇𝒄 𝒕

 The envelop of x(t) can be represented In phasor form

𝒚 𝒕 = 𝒆𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒑 𝒐𝒇 𝒙 𝒕
24
𝟏
𝟐 𝟐 𝟐
= 𝑨𝒄 + 𝑨𝒄 𝒌𝒂 𝒎 𝒕 + 𝒏𝑰 𝒕 + 𝒏𝑸 𝒕

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 Cont.
 Assume that 𝑨𝒄 𝟏 + 𝒌𝒂 𝒎 𝒕 ≫ 𝒏𝑸 𝒕 , 𝒏𝑰 𝒕
𝑦 𝑡 ≅ 𝑨𝒄 + 𝑨𝒄 𝒌𝒂 𝒎 𝒕 + 𝒏𝑰 𝒕
 The output has three components, the first term is a DC value comes from the
carrier and it doesn’t have any information.
 So it can be ignored by blocked by capacitor.
 The average power of the signal is
𝟏
𝑷𝒎 = 𝟐 𝒌𝒂 𝟐 𝑨𝒄 𝟐 𝑷

 Output SNR is
𝑷𝒎 𝒌𝒂 𝟐 𝑨𝒄 𝟐 𝑷
25 𝑺𝑵𝑹𝒐 =
𝑷𝑵
=
𝟐𝑾𝑵𝟎
𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒗𝒓𝒈. 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 > 𝑷𝑵

 Figure of merit
𝑺𝑵𝑹𝒐 𝒌𝒂 𝟐 𝑨𝒄 𝟐 𝑷 𝒌𝒂 𝟐 𝑷
𝒇𝒊𝒈𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒕 = = = <1
𝑺𝑵𝑹𝒄 𝑨𝟐𝒄 [𝟏 + 𝒌𝒂 𝟐 𝑷] 𝟐
[𝟏 + 𝒌𝒂 𝑷]
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 Comparison
 Figure of merit shows that the receiver performance of DSB-WC is less that DSB-SC
and SSB modulations.
 DSB-SC and SSB modulations has unit figure of merit but DSB-WC has always less
than one.
 This is due to the carrier content of the transmission.

26

Com System By Engineer Matios Z.

 Cont.
Remarks

Curve I: DSB modulation and

envelope detector with
modulation factor µ = 1

Curve II: DSB–SC and SSB with

coherent demodulator

Note the threshold effect that

appears at about 10 dB

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28

By Engineer Matios Zenebe @DBU