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Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Background Theory ................................................................................................................................. 3 Results.4 Discussion................................................................................................................................................ 7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 7 Reference ................................................................................................................................................ 8

Introduction
The purpose of this report is to look at different PSK modulation schemes and look at the effect of changing the SNR and the effect this has on the BER(Bit Error Rate). Also we see how choosing any one of these PSK schemes can have impacts on the BER (Bit Error Rate) of the received signal. The PSK schemes that well be using are BPSK, QPSK, 8-PSK and 16-PSK. PSK schemes have a variety of applications for example in 802.11b and 802.11g (used in the sub carrier) [1].

Background Theory
Baseband Modulation Modulation is the process of encoding a baseband signal on to a carrier signal. Modulation may be done by varying the amplitude, phase or frequency of a high frequency carrier in accordance with the amplitude of the message signal[2]. The modulation schemes that we will be looking at in this report is the modulation done by varying the phase.

Additive White Gaussian Noise Additive White Gaussian Noise (awgn) is a simplistic channel that models noise. In this channel, the desired signal is degraded by thermal noise associated with the physical channel itself as well as electronics at the transmitter and receiver [3]. This only models background noise so it is fair to assume that it can only model mobile stations and broadcasting antennas that have direct line of sight. The problem with it is that this does not happen in the real world as signals can have multi-path propagation that can have multipath noise and different types of frequency fading which is not modelled by awgn.

Results
(1)

Fig 1.0 (3)

Fig 1.1

5 (5)

Fig 1.2 (7)

Fig 1.3

Fig 1.4 (green BPSK, red QPSK, blue 8-PSK, pink/magenta 16-PSK)

Discussion
In all the results that were taken (fig 1.0-1.3) a trend was experienced where the probability of an error decreased as the SNR increased. When looking at the comparison plot (fig 1.4) as the number of phase levels increased the trend experienced is that the probability of an error increases this can be proved by the decreasing negative gradient of each curve from BPSK 16-PSK, though it must be noted that the red line of QPSK in fig 1.4 is very close to the green line of BPSK meaning that the phase level increase from 1 to 2 does not cause a dramatic increase in the error rate unlike that of 8-PSK and 16-PSK . The reason for the increase in probability in error due to increase in phase levels will be answered from this question: Give a brief explanation for the loss in error rate performance as we increase the modulation levels in PSK using a constellation map diagram. The reason that there is increase in the error rate as we increase the modulation levels is because of the distances between signal points (Euclidean distances) in the constellation map diagram decreasing as phase levels increase. This is due to an increase in the number of bits used in the transmission, as in the case of BPSK (1-bit), QPSK (2-bits), 8-PSK(3-bits) and 16-PSK(4-bits). When errors occur, in the constellation map diagram signal points can deviate from there reference point which can normally be corrected at the receiving terminal by forward error correction which understands that slight deviations can occur and tries to shift the error signal point back to their respective reference point but this gets harder as there is an increase in the number of bits being used for different PSK schemes where the deviations are close to other reference points. The decoder at the Rx causes an error to occur where it sees a deviation of a signal point and shifts it back to another reference point that it did not originate from causing an error. This is what happens when phase levels increase, the error rate increases.

Conclusion
What we have investigated in this report is the consequence that the SNR can have on the BER for the PSK modulation schemes that have been used in this report. Though there is a limit to increasing the SNR, from Shannon-Hartley theorem increasing the SNR can only be achieved by increasing the bandwidth of the channel and in real systems this is not feasible. Another problem we looked at was the problem of increasing the phase level which has an impact on the error rate (increasing it) and why this problem occurs.

Reference
[1] -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-shift_keying#Applications [2]- Wireless Communications Principles & Practices, Theodore S. Rappaport, published by Prentice Hall, reprinted with corrections July 1999, pp. 197. [3]-Wireless Communications and Networks, William Stallings, published by Prentice Hall, 2002, pp. 122.