IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO.

10, OCTOBER 2005

1679

Multirate Modulation: A Bandwidth- and

Power-Efficient Modulation Scheme
Hans B. Peek, Fellow, IEEE

AbstractMultirate (MR) modulation resembles block-coded

modulation (BCM), since matrices are being used to transform
binary input vectors to multilevel output vectors (blocks) of length
. Unlike BCM, attention is given to the spectral shaping of
the signal to be transmitted. Hence, the encoding matrices are
designed to provide simultaneous spectral shaping and Euclidean
distance. The encoding matrices can be implemented by using MR
digital filters of low complexity. MR modulation also resembles
partial response (PR) modulation since, in both cases, a transmitter and receiver filter is used with an overall duobinary impulse
response. It will be shown that MR modulation has a number of
significant advantages compared with PR modulation. Thus, for
example, with MR modulation, loss of synchronization or gain
control, as can occur with PR modulation, cannot happen in the
receiver. Furthermore, computer simulations for an additive white
Gaussian noise channel demonstrate that, for a bit-error rate of
10 6 , MR modulation (with
= 10) gives a gain of 1.5 dB,
compared with PR modulation and symbol-by-symbol detection.
However, MR modulation requires a slightly higher bandwidth. It
is also explained how, for block lengths
10, MR modulation
gives a larger bandwidth efficiency than
-ary pulse-amplitude
modulation with raised-cosine pulses and a rolloff factor
0 1.
Index TermsBandlimited communication, decoding, digital
communication, discrete-time filters, modulation.

I. INTRODUCTION

HIRD-GENERATION cellular exemplifies wireless systems where the realization of sharp spectral characteristics
is traded off against processing complexity in signal generation
and detection. In universal mobile telecommunications systems
(UTMSs), a square-root raised cosine pulse with a rolloff factor
of 0.22 is used. This corresponds with excess bandwidth of 22%
and, therefore, the bandwidth efficiency is low in this case. The
technique described here takes a new approach that realizes excellent bandwidth efficiency at a minimal cost in power efficiency and processing complexity.
be a discrete-time signal, representing a data
Let
and
stream and consisting of an arbitrary sequence of
samples with a sampling period of
s that has to be transmitted over an additive Gaussian noise channel. Assume a strict
Hz that could theoretically be
bandwidth limitation of
as the weights of a series of
achieved by applying the
delta pulses (with period ) fed to an ideal low-pass analog
Hz. However, because
filter with a bandwidth
Paper approved by X. Dong, the Editor for Modulation and Signal Design of
the IEEE Communications Society. Manuscript received April 30, 2003; revised
August 3, 2004, January 27, 2005, and April 27, 2005.
The author is at Dennenlaan 10, 5671 BX Nuenen, The Netherlands (e-mail:
h.peek@ieee.org).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCOMM.2005.857145

of the brick-wall-shaped frequency characteristic of an ideal

low-pass analog filter, such a filter cannot be realized. Partial
response (PR) filters [1, Sec. 4.6], in particular, the duobinary
and modified duobinary impulse responses, are realizable filters
meeting the same strict bandwidth limitation. These can be
implemented as the combination of a digital filter, with system
or
, respectively,
function
, and an ideal analog low-pass filter,
where
resulting in a realizable analog low-pass filter with a cosineor sine-shaped frequency-response characteristic, respectively.
, correEach has a spectral null at the Nyquist frequency
.
sponding with
Although PR modulation is very bandwidth-efficient, the
output of these filters can become zero for long input strings
of plus-ones and minus-ones or alternating sign samples.
Zero transmitted energy over a long time can cause loss of
synchronization or gain control in the receiver. Besides, in
order to avoid error propagation, the digital signal has to be
precoded [1, Sec. 4.5]. To obtain maximum power efficiency for
PR-modulated signals, maximum-likelihood (ML) sequence
detection must be used in the receiver. This makes the receiver
complicated, in particular, for PR signaling with many levels.
However, it is also possible to use simple symbol-by-symbol
detection. This will, however, give a loss in power efficiency.
In this paper, an extension of PR modulation is described that
does not have the disadvantages of PR modulation mentioned
above. This extension of PR modulation makes use of multirate (MR) digital filters [1, Sec. 4.7], [2], [3]. Multirate refers
to the property that the output sampling rate of such a digital
filter can be larger or smaller than the input sampling rate. It
will be explained how, with such an MR filter, a spectral null at
the Nyquist frequency of the output signal can be realized. The
times larger
output sampling rate will, however, be
than the input sampling rate, where is a positive integer such
. The operation of the digital MR filter can also be
that
samples
regarded as transforming an input block of
taken from the set
into an output block (codeword) of
samples taken from the set
.
The system to be described combines a digital MR filter with
an ideal low-pass analog filter. To make it realizable, the part
of the digital MR filter that is responsible for the Nyquist null
can be merged with the ideal low-pass analog filter resulting in
a realizable analog filter. This filter will have a duobinary impulse response. Because of the higher output sampling rate with
, the bandwidth efficiency of MR modulation
a factor
will be smaller by this factor, compared with normal PR modcan be chosen, say 20, the loss in bandwidth
ulation. Since
efficiency is only 5% in that case.

0090-6778/$20.00 2005 IEEE

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TABLE I
CODEBOOK

It will be shown that the creation of a Nyquist null results

in a larger minimum Euclidean distance between the output
codewords of the MR filter. This larger Euclidean distance can
be exploited in the receiver by using an easy-to-implement
Wagner decoding [6], [7]. MR modulation over an additive
white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel with Wagner decoding
and, for
in the receiver gives, for a bit-error rate (BER) of
, a gain in power efficiency of 1.5 dB, compared with
standard duobinary PR signaling.
A compact and useful comparison of digital modulation
(b/s/Hz
methods is based on the normalized data rate
of bandwidth) versus the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) per bit
) required to achieve a given error probability. In [5,
(
Fig. 5, 217, p. 282], such a comparison is made of several modsymbol-error probability. Proakis
ulation methods for a
distinguishes in [5, Fig. 5, 217, p. 282] a bandwidth-limited
and a power-limited region. MR modulation belongs to the
bandwidth-limited region, but intends to be power-efficient
in that region, like coded modulation. Just like block-coded
modulation (BCM) [7, pp. 528529], MR modulation is
power-efficient in the sense that it provides Euclidean distance
at the transmitter and exploits it in the receiver.

Fig. 1. MR filter structure for realizing the matrix transformation given by (1).
Input block length 3; output block length 4.

demonstrates that the Nyquist frequency

or
is absent. Note further that there is no output block consisting
of only zero samples. This implies that a concatenation of output
blocks will never result in a loss of synchronization or gain control in the receiver. This is an advantage over PR modulation, in
which certain data sequences can cause a loss of synchronization and gain control in the receiver.
or
samples is 1/4,
The frequency of occurrence of
whereas that of a zero sample is 1/2. This is similar to duobinary signaling, which also has a Nyquist null and where
and
.
The transformation from an input block to an output block
is given by the matrix multiplication

II. EXAMPLE OF MR MODULATION

The main idea in MR modulation is based on a transformation
of an input block to a different output block such that the spectrum
of the output block possesses a spectral null. The creation of a
spectral null can best be explained by giving an example. Then
it will be easier to understand the theory of MR modulation.
A. Example
, consisting of a series of
The discrete-time signal
plus-one and minus-one samples, can be regarded as a conof length 3. Now let each
catenation of blocks (vectors)
input block be transformed into an output block of length
consists of samples from
. For
4, where every
this example, this transformation is given by the codebook in
Table I.
be equal to that of
Let the duration of every input block
, where is the output samthe corresponding output block
and, hence, the output sampling
pling period. Thus,
rate will be 4/3 times the input sampling rate.
Application of the Fourier transform to an arbitrary output
block

where
(1)

Fig. 1 shows an MR filter implementation of this matrix transformation [3]. This MR filter contains three finite impulse re,
,
sponse (FIR) digital filters with system functions
, where
. It is important to note that
and
the coefficients of the first, second, and third polynomials correspond, respectively, to the first, second, and third columns of .
The two delay elements, each of s, and the threefold downsampling in every branch, can be regarded as a serial-to-parallel
conversion. A fourfold upsampling in every branch results in
a fourfold increase of the sampling frequency. In general, an
-fold downsampling means that only the input sample numbers equal to a multiple of are retained [4]. A -fold upzero-valued samples are inserted
sampling means that
between adjacent input samples [4]. The three FIR filters, with
or
, and their short impulse responses are of
coefficients
low complexity. An advantage of representing the matrix transformation (1) in real time as given in Fig. 1 is that it can be
extended to represent the required signal-processing operation

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1681

give a Nyquist null. Thus, the loss in bandwidth efficiency given

can be made small.
by the ratio
The minimum Hamming distance of the code given in Table I
, whereas the minimum Euclidean distance is
is
. This is the same minimum Euclidean distance as between
two PR sequences of 2, 2, and zero samples. If the noise samples at the output of the matched filter in the receiver were uncorrelated, a 3-dB gain in power efficiency using ML sequence
detection could be obtained, compared with symbol-by-symbol
detection. It will be shown, however, that the noise samples are
correlated and that, with Wagner decoding, an asymptotic gain
of 1.76 dB can be achieved, compared with PR modulation using
and
,
symbol-by-symbol detection. For a BER of
however, the gain is 1.5 dB.
Fig. 2. Cascade of an MR filter and an analog filter that gives a spectrum null
at the Nyquist frequency. Input block length 3; output block length 4.

for any
matrix. In Section IV,
matrix transformations, for various values of
and , are described. All of
these transformations can be implemented by generalizing the
scheme given in Fig. 1 by using parallel branches and, in each
branch, an -fold downsampling, followed by a -fold upsampling and simple FIR filters. However, there are various ways
to implement a digital MR filter [8], and the final choice depends
on the preference of the designer. Analysis of the MR filter operation, given in Fig. 1, will show that it causes a delay of one
s between input and output.
block, i.e.,
The three system functions are zero at the Nyquist frequency
or at
. Thus, (
) can be factored out from all three system functions, and made a common
. When
multiplier without changing the output signal
) is merged with an ideal low-pass filter with
the factor (
, the result is the realizable shaped-spectrum
a bandwidth
low-pass filter of Fig. 2. The frequency response of the cascade of the two filters can be determined as follows. An ideal
, has an impulse relow-pass filter, with a bandwidth
sponse

where
.
The cascade of a filter with a system function
ideal low-pass filter thus has the impulse response

III. BLOCK TRANSFORMATION USING

AN MR DIGITAL FILTER
can
In this section, we explain how a binary signal
be transformed into a digital output signal
by using a
is divided into
digital MR filter. The binary input signal
blocks of length , and the MR filter output signal
is divided into blocks of length . The transformation of the
th input block to the corresponding output block is linear
and is given by
(3)
matrix with entries
and where and
where is a
are column vectors of length and , respectively. The dus equals the time duration
ration of every input block
s of every output block. Thus
(4)
This can be implemented with an MR digital filter similar to that
given in Fig. 1.
, the input and output rates differ, hence, the word
If
multirate. The filter is realized by a parallel connection of
different FIR filters that are preceded by an -fold downsampling and a -fold upsampling. The impulse response of the
th FIR filter is (
)
(5)

and the
where

This is called a duobinary pulse [1, Sec. 4.6.1].

The Fourier transform of
gives the frequency response
of the total filter
(2)
The magnitude of this frequency response
is depicted in
Fig. 2.
For this example, MR modulation would require a 4/3 times
larger bandwidth than PR modulation. In the next section, it will
be shown, however, that it is easy to create matrices with rows
columns, where
can be arbitrary large, that also
and

Thus, the impulse response of the th FIR filter corresponds with

the coefficients of the th column of matrix .
and are relatively prime, the order of downsampling
If
and upsampling can be changed [4].
At the instant the th input block enters the MR filter, the
th output block
starts to emerge from the filter. Thus,
the MR filter causes a time delay of one block. In Section I, it
was shown that this implementation is ideally suited for combining with an ideal low-pass filter to obtain a realizable analog
filter with a Nyquist null and, thus, limit the bandwidth of the
output signal to the Nyquist frequency bandwidth (
).

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2005

IV. NYQUIST NULL IN THE OUTPUT SIGNAL SPECTRUM OF AN

MR FILTER FOR AN -ARY PAM INPUT SIGNAL

An example of such a matrix

is given by

The Fourier transform of an output block

is
(6)
is the relative frequency. If the row vector
where
denotes the th row of the matrix , then (6) can be written as
(7)
where is the input vector corresponding with the output vector
.
Now, define the system functions

(15)
All entries not indicated have zero value and are left out for
(
) rows and
clarity. The matrix has
columns. The system functions are

and the system row vector

(8)
Then, (7) can be written as

(16)
(9)

All system functions are zero for

, and thus
(17)

If for

or
i.e.,

then
(10)
. The
regardless of , i.e., regardless of the input signal
, in the fundamental interval
shape of the spectrum
, depends, of course, on and
.
(
)
A spectral null at the Nyquist frequency
is obtained when
(11)
From (6), it follows that in that case
(12)
The code defined by the matrix
given by (1) is an example
where all output codewords fulfill (12).
In certain applications such as baseband data transmission
[PCM codecs and digital subscriber line (DSL)], a spectral null
at dc (zero frequency) is desired. This can be obtained when
(13)
In that case, it follows from (6) that
(14)
A matrix that gives either a dc null or a Nyquist null can be
converted into the other type by multiplying all entries in the
even rows by minus one.
A matrix generates codewords with a Nyquist null if according to (11)

A few words on how the matrix [given by (15)] was found

might be useful.
Since each component of an output block is an element from
, each row of the matrix must exist of zero
the set
entries except two entries taken from the set
.
Next, every column of the matrix must correspond with a
. By trying, one can
system function that is zero for
yields the smallest matrix, as given by (1).
show that
Once this result is obtained, it is not difficult to discover the reggiven by (15). Furthermore, the matrix
ular structure for
transformation must give a one-to-one correspondence between
each input vector and its corresponding output vector [3].
and matrix give a one-to-one correspondence beMatrix
tween and .
The ratio of the output sample rate and the input sample rate
for an MR filter that is described by matrix is
and approaches unity for large values of .
Because gives codewords with a Nyquist null, it follows
from (12) that
(18)
This property will be used later in the decoding (error correction). After error correction in the receiver, the original input
block must be recovered. This step will be called data reof the vector
covery. For data recovery, the last component
can be deleted and the last row of .
Now, define the reduced vector
(19)
be the square
and let
by deleting the last row of . Clearly,
vector can be recovered by

matrix that is obtained

is invertible, and the
(20)

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Fig. 3.

1683

K 0 1); output block length K .

Cascade of an MR filter and an analog filter that gives a spectrum null at the Nyquist frequency. Input block length (

The inverse matrix operation

can be implemented with an
MR filter.
is an invertible matrix, it follows that a vector
Because
with arbitrary components can also be recovered from the output
by using (20).
vector
is an
-ary (digital) pulse-amAssume now that
is a vector
plitude modulation (PAM) vector, i.e.,
PAM components taken from the set
with
,
and
2, 4, 8, etc. This set contains
where
distinct integers. The case
has already been discussed.
, the set is
.
For
If the input to an MR filter, given by the matrix , is an -ary
, with a Nyquist
PAM block , then the output block
null, has components taken from the set

(
). Since both and have
the difference vector
also has a Nyquist null. In order that
a Nyquist null,
has a Nyquist null, it must have at least two components
different from zero. Hence, the minimum Hamming distance is
. These two components of
have a minimum
absolute value of 2, and thus the minimum Euclidean distance
.
between two output codewords is
Now, the system functions given by (16) can be written as

(21)

In the same manner as was done for the MR filter that implemented the matrix
(Section II), the digital filter with system
and an ideal analog low-pass filter can be
function
merged into a realizable analog low-pass filter (Fig. 3) with a
.
magnitude response
For certain applications, such as in wireless systems, it is advantageous to have both a dc null and a Nyquist null. If the
transmitted signal spectrum has a null at the carrier frequency,
a synchrodyne receiver can be applied, which is much easier to
realize on a chip than a heterodyne receiver with its intermediate frequency (IF) filter [9]. In [2], a matrix is given, with
rows and
columns, where
, and even that generates codewords with a dc null and a Nyquist null.
Implementing this matrix with an MR filter and merging the
or
with
common system functions, either
an ideal low-pass filter will give a realizable analog filter that
will either have a duobinary or modified duobinary impulse response. For the sake of brevity, this case will not be considered
further.

, the set is
. These
For
equidistant levels are identical with those at the output of a PR
duobinary filter with an -ary PAM signal as input [5, Sec.
is
9.2.3]. Furthermore, a reduced vector of length
defined by (19). The components of are taken from the set
is invertible. Thus,
(21). In that case, (20) also holds, since
the -ary PAM vector can be recovered.
It is important to note that, if is an -ary PAM vector, then
, and consequently, also
. Thus, no loss of synchronization or gain control, as can occur with PR, can happen
in the receiver. Moreover, error propagation, as occurs with PR
without precoding, is impossible with MR.
All output blocks have a Nyquist null. After having used
(18) for error correction (decoding) in the receiver (Section V),
and assuming no errors are left in the reduced block, the original
-ary PAM block is recovered by using (20).
Consider, in order to determine the minimum Hamming and
minimum Euclidean distance of the code given by matrix ,

(22)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2005

Fig. 4. Bandwidth efficiency of M -ary PAM,with raised cosine pulses,as a

a function of the rolloff factor . The bandwidth efficiencies of M -ary MR
modulation for a block length of K = 5, K = 10, and K = 20 are also
indicated.
Fig. 5.

The bandwidth efficiency of

tion with a Nyquist null is

Structure of an MR modulation receiver.

-ary PAM using MR modula-

b s Hz

(23)

which is
times smaller than for standard duobinary
, which is easy to implement, the
PR modulation. For
loss in bandwidth efficiency is 5%.
For -ary PAM with raised cosine pulses and a rolloff factor
, the bandwidth efficiency is
b s Hz

(24)

From (23) and (24), it can be concluded that -ary MR modgives a higher bandwidth efficiency than
ulation for
-ary PAM and
. In Fig. 4, (24) is plotted as a function
of , and the bandwidth efficiencies as given by (23) are indi,
, and
.
cated for
V. DECODING OF AN MR-MODULATED SIGNAL
Let an MR-modulated signal with a Nyquist null be transmitted over an additive Gaussian noise channel using duobinary
pulses,as explained earlier.
It is well known [5, Sec. 9.2.3] that the frequency response
(2), i.e., the Fourier transform of a duobinary pulse, has
and
to be split evenly between the frequency responses
of the transmitter and receiver filters. Thus
(25)
is given by (2).
where
in the receiver (Fig. 5)
The output of the matched filter
is sampled with a period . The resulting samples, belonging
to a transmitted block , can be written as
(26)
where is a noise vector with correlated Gaussian noise components. As indicated in Section IV, is a block of samples
with values taken from a set of
equidistant levels.

Next, the components of are rounded to the nearest of the

levels, which gives

We now apply a decoding algorithm attributed to Wagner [6],

[7].
Define

and the error vector

If is a codeword with a Nyquist null, then

, then the decoded vector is
to (18). Thus, if

according

If, however,
, then we determine the largest magnitude
error component of , say , and modify to
so that

This guarantees that the corrected sum is zero. Thus

Implementation of Wagner decoding is very simple. In successamples, one only has to keep track of the
sively rounding
largest rounding error, and to mark at which position in the block
this occurred. Initially, the largest error is at the first position
in the block. Assume, for example, that the second rounding
error is smaller than the first, but that the third rounding error
is larger than the first. In that case, one deletes the value of the
first rounding error and retains the value of the third rounding
error, and marks that this error occurred at the third position in
the block. This process continues until, at the end of the block,
the position of the largest rounding error is determined.

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1685

Since Wagner decoding is not a recursive algorithm as Viterbi

decoding is, it can be executed at very high speeds.
In the Appendix , it is shown that, after Wagner decoding and
is upperfor large SNRs, the probability of a block error
bounded by
(27)
where
is the average energy per bit that is related to the
distance between two adjacent levels (see the Appendix), and
is the power spectral density of the AWGN. A block
where
error occurs if two or more symbols in a block are erroneous (see
the Appendix).
Proakis [5, Sec. 9.3.2] showed that, for -ary duobinary PR
modulation and symbol-by-symbol detection, the average probability of a symbol error is upper bounded as
(28)
where

is the average energy per bit, and where

(29)

Fig. 6. Performance of MR modulation for

= 2 and for various values
of the block length . The theoretical and simulated performances of PR
modulation for
= 2 and for symbol-by-symbol detection are also indicated.

In order to compare the bounds given by (27) and (28), we use

as a bound for the function
(30)
However, this bound is only tight for large values of . Therefore, this comparison of PR and MR is only relevant for high
SNRs.
We thus obtain for (28)
(31)
For large SNRs, the power efficiency of a modulation scheme is
determined by the argument of the exponential function. Thus,
the energy per bit required by PR with symbol-by-symbol detection to achieve the same small value for the error probability
times greater, or 1.76 dB.
as MR is
The exponent in the BER expression for MR is the same as
that of the block-error probability. Only the coefficient in front
of the exponent is different. This coefficient can be made smaller
by using an additional error correction after the inverse matrix
operation and after recovering the bits from the PAM vector. For
, the error-correction operation is as follows. Correct
the symbols 3 and 2, after the inverse matrix processing by the
and
by the symbol
symbol 1, and correct the symbols
. Finally, correct the symbol 0 by the symbol 1.
Ciacci made computer simulations for MR modulation with
Wagner decoding and the additional error correction for
and
, each for block lengths
,
,
,
. The BER curves he obtained for these cases as
and
are given in Figs. 6 and 7. Here,
dea function of
notes the energy per bit in each case. His results were obtained

Fig. 7. Performance of MR modulation for

= 4 and for various values of
the block length . The theoretical upper bound for the BER of PR modulation
for
= 4 is also indicated.

by using statistically independent

and
symbols for generating PAM symbols. He also simulated PR modulation for
. The result of these simulations, as well as the theoretical upper bound on the BER, are also shown in Fig. 6. From
Figs. 6 and 7, one can conclude the following.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2005

1) For
and
with
and a BER of
,
the gain of MR with Wagner decoding is 1.5 and 1.3 dB,
respectively, compared with PR and symbol-by-symbol
detection.
, the BER curves for the various
2) For increasing
converge. This is in agreement with (27) where, for
, the difference between the block-error
increasing
probabilities, for any two values of
but for the same
, will go to zero.
and
, the difference between the power
3) For
, for both MR (same ) and
efficiencies, at a BER of
PR is about 4 dB. This is in accordance with (27) and (28).
is a good compromise between power effiA value of
ciency and bandwidth efficiency.
Finally, we compare the power efficiencies of MR modulation with Wagner decoding and -ary PAM with raised cosine
pulses.
In [1, Sec. 4.4], the probability of a symbol (sample) error for
-ary PAM with raised cosine pulses is given by

Compared with -ary PAM, MR modulation for

gives a loss of 0.65 dB.
a BER of

and

APPENDIX
Before deriving an upper bound for the block-error probability after Wagner decoding, we first determine the correlation
between the noise components of the noise vector .
The power spectral density (PSD) function of the noise at the
output of the matched filter in the receiver is

where
is given by (2), and where
is the PSD of the
AWGN. The autocorrelation function of the output noise is

(34)
Thus, the noise variance is

(32)
where
is the average energy per bit. With Gray coding, the
times the symbol-error
BER for -ary PAM is
rate given by (32). Multiplying (32) by the factor
and solving this equation for a BER of
and for the cases
and
yields an
of, respectively, 10.6
and 14.41 dB. Comparison of these two results with the correvalues for MR, at a BER of
, shows a loss
sponding
and
, and
in power efficiency of MR for
of approximately 0.65 dB.
Using the bound (30) in (32) and comparing this result with
the bound (27) yields that the loss in asymptotic power efficiency of MR modulation and Wagner decoding compared with
-ary PAM and raised cosine pulses is
dB

(33)

(35)
and the normalized autocorrelation coefficients are
where
Note that the correlation is largest for two adjacent noise com.
ponents
The probability of the occurrence of a zero symbol is larger
than for any other symbol. Therefore, the probability of a block
can be upper bounded by assuming that a block conerror
sisting of only zero symbols is transmitted.
After Wagner decoding, there remain two types of errors. The
first type of error is a double or triple sample error. Of this type,
the dominant term for high SNRs is a double sample (symbol)
)
error. Since two adjacent samples (noise correlation
are more likely to be in error than two nonadjacent samples, the
of a double or triple error is approximated by
probability
(36)

VI. CONCLUSION
It has been shown that MR modulation is bandwidth- and
power-efficient, and is simple to implement. It was also shown
that MR modulation has a number of advantages, compared
with PR modulation. Thus, with MR modulation, loss of synchronization or gain control, as can occur with PR modulation,
cannot happen in the receiver. Precoding, as needed in PR modulation, is not required for MR modulation, since error propagation is impossible for MR modulation. Furthermore, compared with PR modulation and symbol-by-symbol detection,
,
MR modulation with simple Wagner decoding gives for
, and
a gain of 1.5 and 1.3 dB, respectively,
at a BER of
. Finally, compared with -ary PAM and
, gives a
raised-cosine pulses, MR modulation, for
.
greater bandwidth efficiency for rolloff factors
However, the bandwidth efficiency of MR modulation de, compared with PR modulation.
creases by a factor

where

is the bivariate normal probability density function with a nor,

is the
malized correlation coefficient
number of adjacent sample combinations in a block of length
, and
is the distance between two levels.
The second type of error occurs when Wagner decoding incorrectly determines the position where a sample has to be corrected. This event occurs when the roundoff error, at the position where a sample error did indeed happen, is smaller than
roundoff errors. In that case, the value
one of the other
of the sample, which is different from the erroneous sample, is
changed, resulting in a second error. The probability of such an
event is called . For this type of decoding error, the dominant

PEEK: MULTIRATE MODULATION: A BANDWIDTH- AND POWER-EFFICIENT MODULATION SCHEME

term for high SNRs is that only one of the

roundoff errors is larger than that which occurred at the position where the
error did indeed happen. Furthermore, if after rounding only one
sample (symbol) has an error, it is likely that, because two adja), the
cent noise samples have the largest correlation (
erroneously determined position of this error is adjacent to the
can, for high SNRs, be approximated
true position. Hence,
by

Since

1687

Substituting (41) and (35) into (39) gives as an upper bound for
the block-error probability after Wagner decoding [(27)].
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank M. Ciacci for making the computer simulations and for the discussions with him. The author
would also like to thank S. Baggen, J. Bergmans, L. Tolhuizen,
and S. Weinstein for reading the manuscript and providing their
valuable comments.
REFERENCES

, we have

(37)
Using (29) and (30), we find after tedious but straightforward
computation that
(38)
into (37) and (38), we have as an
After substituting
upper bound for the block-error probability
(39)
Proakis [5, Sec. 9.3.2] derived for PR modulation a relation belevels and the average transtween the distance of the
mitted signal power. This relation also holds for MR modulaequidistant levels,
tion, with a distance between the
and is given by
(40)
is the average transmitted signal power for MR modwhere
ulation.
, where
is the average energy
Since
per bit, (40) can also be written as
(41)

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[5] J. G. Proakis, Digital Communications, 4th ed. New York: McGrawHill, 2001.
[6] R. A. Silverman and M. Balser, Coding for constant data rate systems,
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Hans B. Peek (SM75F87) received the degree in

electrical engineering from the Technical University
of Delft, Delft, The Netherlands, in 1959, and the
Ph.D. degree from the Technical University of Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in 1967.
In 1961, he joined the Philips Research Laboratories, Eindhoven, where he was involved in the areas
of digital signal processing and communications, and
where he was a Department Head from 1969 to 1987.
From 1987 to 1991, he was a Chief Scientist with the
same laboratories and, from 1987 to 2001, a part-time
Professor with Nijmegen University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Dr. Peek was the recipient of various awards, including the Gold Medal from
the Dutch Veder Foundation in 1967, the IEEE Communications Magazine Best
Paper Award in 1985, and the IEEE Millenium Medal 2000. He is a member of
Eta Kappa Nu.