Modulation in Digital
Communication
ETE/EEE 422
Saif Ahmed (SfA)
Digital Modulation Techniques
• Digital Modulation provides more information capacity, high data
security, quicker system availability with great quality communication.
Hence, digital modulation techniques have a greater demand, for
their capacity to convey larger amounts of data than analog
modulation techniques.
Amplitude Shift Keying
• ASK is a type of Amplitude
Modulation which represents the
binary data in the form of
variations in the amplitude of a
signal.
• Any modulated signal has a high
frequency carrier. The binary
signal when ASK modulated,
gives a zero value for Low input
while it gives the carrier output
for High input.
ASK Modulator
• The carrier generator, sends a continuous
high-frequency carrier. The binary sequence
from the message signal makes the unipolar
input to be either High or Low. The high signal
closes the switch, allowing a carrier wave.
Hence, the output will be the carrier signal at
high input. When there is low input, the
switch opens, allowing no voltage to appear.
Hence, the output will be low.
• The band-limiting filter, shapes the pulse
depending upon the amplitude and phase
characteristics of the band-limiting filter or the
pulse-shaping filter.
ASK Demodulator
There are two types of ASK Demodulation techniques. They are −
• Asynchronous ASK Demodulation/detection
• Synchronous ASK Demodulation/detection
The clock frequency at the transmitter when matches with the clock
frequency at the receiver, it is known as a Synchronous method, as the
frequency gets synchronized. Otherwise, it is known as Asynchronous.
Asynchronous ASK Demodulator
• The modulated ASK signal is
given to the half-wave
rectifier, which delivers a
positive half output. The low
pass filter suppresses the
higher frequencies and gives
an envelope detected
output from which the
comparator delivers a digital
output.
Synchronous ASK Demodulator
• The ASK modulated input signal
is given to the Square law
detector. A square law detector
is one whose output voltage is
proportional to the square of the
amplitude modulated input
voltage. The low pass filter
minimizes the higher
frequencies. The comparator
and the voltage limiter help to
get a clean digital output.
Frequency Shift Keying
• Frequency Shift Keying FSK is the
digital modulation technique in which
the frequency of the carrier signal
varies according to the digital signal
changes. FSK is a scheme of frequency
modulation.
• The output of a FSK modulated wave is
high in frequency for a binary High
input and is low in frequency for a
binary Low input. The binary 1s and 0s
are called Mark and Space frequencies.
FSK Modulator
• The two oscillators, producing a
higher and a lower frequency signals,
are connected to a switch along with
an internal clock. To avoid the abrupt
phase discontinuities of the output
waveform during the transmission of
the message, a clock is applied to
both the oscillators, internally. The
binary input sequence is applied to
the transmitter so as to choose the
frequencies according to the binary
input.
FSK Demodulator
• There are different methods for demodulating a FSK wave. The main
methods of FSK detection are asynchronous detector and
synchronous detector. The synchronous detector is a coherent one,
while asynchronous detector is a non-coherent one.
Asynchronous FSK Detector
• The FSK signal is passed through the two
Band Pass Filters BPFs, tuned to Space
and Mark frequencies. The output from
these two BPFs look like ASK signal,
which is given to the envelope detector.
The signal in each envelope detector is
modulated asynchronously.
• The decision circuit chooses which
output is more likely and selects it from
any one of the envelope detectors. It
also re-shapes the waveform to a
rectangular one.
Synchronous FSK Detector
• The FSK signal input is given to
the two mixers with local
oscillator circuits. These two are
connected to two band pass
filters. These combinations act
as demodulators and the
decision circuit chooses which
output is more likely and selects
it from any one of the detectors.
The two signals have a minimum
frequency separation.
Phase Shift Keying
• Phase Shift Keying PSK is the digital modulation technique in which the phase of the carrier signal is changed by varying the sine
and cosine inputs at a particular time. PSK technique is widely used for wireless LANs, bio-metric, contactless operations, along
with RFID and Bluetooth communications.
• PSK is of two types, depending upon the phases the signal gets shifted. They are −
Binary Phase Shift Keying BPSK
• This is also called as 2-phase PSK or Phase Reversal Keying. In this technique, the sine wave carrier takes two phase reversals such
as 0° and 180°.
• BPSK is basically a Double Side Band Suppressed Carrier DSBSC modulation scheme, for message being the digital information.
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying QPSK
• This is the phase shift keying technique, in which the sine wave carrier takes four phase reversals such as 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°.
• If this kind of techniques are further extended, PSK can be done by eight or sixteen values also, depending upon the requirement.
BPSK Modulator
• The block diagram of Binary Phase
Shift Keying consists of the balance
modulator which has the carrier sine
wave as one input and the binary
sequence as the other input. Following
is the diagrammatic representation.
• The modulation of BPSK is done using
a balance modulator, which multiplies
the two signals applied at the input.
For a zero binary input, the phase will
be 0° and for a high input, the phase
reversal is of 180°.
BPSK Demodulator
• By recovering the band-limited message
signal, with the help of the mixer circuit and
the band pass filter, the first stage of
demodulation gets completed. The base
band signal which is band limited is obtained
and this signal is used to regenerate the
binary message bit stream.
• In the next stage of demodulation, the bit
clock rate is needed at the detector circuit to
produce the original binary message signal. If
the bit rate is a sub-multiple of the carrier
frequency, then the bit clock regeneration is
simplified. To make the circuit easily
understandable, a decision-making circuit
may also be inserted at the 2nd stage of
detection.
QPSK Modulator
• At the modulator’s input, the
message signal’s even bits (i.e.,
2nd bit, 4th bit, 6th bit, etc.) and
odd bits (i.e., 1st bit, 3rd bit, 5th bit,
etc.) are separated by the bits
splitter and are multiplied with
the same carrier to generate odd
BPSK (called as PSKI) and even
BPSK (called as PSKQ).
The PSKQ signal is anyhow phase
shifted by 90° before being
modulated.