Modulation

Evan Everett and Michael Wu

ELEC 433 - Spring 2013
Questions from Lab 1?
Modulation

Goal: overlay data onto carrier signal (sinusoid)

Sinusoids have two very accessible parameters

Modulate amplitude and phase

x(t ) = Asin(t + )
Data
Modulation
Carrier
10100
Modulation

Goal: overlay data onto carrier signal (sinusoid)

Sinusoids have two very accessible parameters

Modulate amplitude and phase

Data
Modulation
10100
Why not?
1) Interference avoidance
2) High freq ! small antennas
Signal Representation: Phasor

Polar: Amplitude & Phase

Rectangular: In-phase (I) & Quadrature (Q)

Phase
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e
0
!/2
!
-!/2
I
Re[x]
Q
Im[x]
x(t ) = Asin(t + ) x(t ) = I cos(t ) + Q sin(t )
I = A sin() Q = Acos()
Signal Representation

Rectangular (I,Q) form suggests a practical implementation

cos(t )
sin(t )
I
Q
90
I cos(t ) + Q sin(t )
I
Re[x]
Q
Im[x]

Modulation = mapping data bits to (I,Q) values

10100
Digital Modulation

Maps bits to complex values (I/Q) (focus of the Lab 3)

Complex modulated values are called symbols

Set of symbols is called constellation or alphabet

# of symbols in constellation is modulation order, M

M-order constellation can encode ______ bits per symbol

[10] [01]
[11] [00]
Digital Modulation

Maps bits to complex values (I/Q) (focus of the Lab 2)

Complex modulated values are called symbols

Set of symbols is called constellation or alphabet

# of symbols in constellation is modulation order, M

M-order constellation can encode log

2
(M) bits per symbol
[10] [01]
[11] [00]
Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

Encodes information only in phase

Constant power envelope

Pros: no need to recover amplitude, no need for linear amplier

Con: wastes amplitude dimension

BPSK (M =2) QPSK (M =4) 8-PSK (M =8)
[1] [0]
[01] [00]
[11] [10]
[000]
[001]

Encodes information in both amplitude and phase

(I,Q) grid
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)

M
4-QAM 16-QAM 64-QAM
802.11b 802.11g/n 802.11ac
16-QAM 64-QAM 256-QAM

Common in wideband systems:

Bit-to-Symbol Mapping

Confusing with neighbor is most likely error

Best to minimize bit-difference between neighbors

Gray Coding

Neighboring symbols differ by only one bit

Extra performance at zero cost (this is rare!)

[10] [01]
[11] [00]
[11] [01]
[10] [00]
Natural-coded
QPSK
Gray-coded
QPSK
Tradeoff: Rate vs. Error Probability

By increasing modulation order, M, we get:

More data in same bandwidth :)

Lower noise tolerance (i.e. higher error probability) :(

Therefore, SNR dictates feasible constellation size

QPSK: 2 bits/symbol
I
Q
QPSK: 2 bits/symbol
I
Q
16-QAM: 4 bits/symbol
I
Q
64-QAM: 6 bits/symbol
I
Q
1E-09
1E-08
1E-07
1E-06
1E-05
1E-04
1E-03
1E-02
1E-01
1E+00
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
B
E
R
BPSK
QPSK
8-PSK
16-QAM
64-QAM
E
b
/N
0
(dB)
Bit error rate (BER) vs. SNR per bit (E
b
/N
0
)