PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF VARIOUS DIGITAL MODULATION METHODS FOR DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS

Prepared by :

Ceyhan Kasap 2007704389

Agenda

INTRODUCTION DIGITAL MODULATION BASICS

DIGITAL MODULATION METHODS

Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) Phase Modulated Signals (Phase Shift Keying) (PSK) Quadrature Amplitude Modulated Signals (QAM)

OPTIMUM RECEIVERS FOR DIGITAL MODULATION FOR ADDITIVE WHITE GAUSSIAN NOISE CHANNELS

Optimum Correlation Receiver

SIMULATIONS SIMULATION RESULTS

CONCLUSIONS

INTRODUCTION

Communication system: a composite system

of subunits that make the exchange of information possible between two or more parties.

efcient transmission Channel : the physical medium, through which the message signal is sent to the destination. Receiver: message destination

Source: message originator Transmitter unit: modies the message signal for

The main problem of all communication systems:

The message signal attenuated or contaminated by noise through transmission process on the channel.

The ultimate goal of every communication system is to eliminate the noise and attenuation effects
in order to guarantee reliable exchange of information. If there was no noise or channel attenuation, there would be no need for telecommunication engineers!!!

a sequence of digital messages (a bit stream) or a digitized analog signal. The messages are represented by a limited set of analogue wave forms, using a digital modulation method . Digital modulation is the key to todays high speed data transfer

Digital communications refers to the transmission of

DIGITAL MODULATION BASICS

In simplest terms, an M-ary digital modulator takes k bits of information and maps them to one of the M possible analog waveforms. In that sense modulation is a mapping from the bits to analog waveforms. These M waveforms are usually chosen by modulating either the amplitude, frequency or a hybrid combination of the two
Un_1

Un { 0 1 0 0 0 . } Incoming bits are grouped into blocks of k bits

SERIAL TO PARALEL CONVERTER

Un_2 Un_k-1 Un_k

SYMBOL LEVEL MAPPER

MODULATOR

Usually the modulators that are used in practice are quite complex. Generally non-linear modulators with memory are used. For example the European digital cellular communication system, named GSM (Global System for Mobile communications), uses Gaussian minimum shift keying type modulation which is a nonlinear modulation method

To understand the basic principles of digital modulation; we will examine linear, memoryless modulation methods in this project

a) Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) In pulse amplitude modulation, the M-ary pulse amplitude modulator output is one of the M possible waveforms, each differing from each other in their discrete amplitudes.

DIGITAL MODULATION METHODS

For PAM, the m-th signal waveform dened for a duration of time period T may be represented as:

An orthogonal signal expansion on the amplitude modulated signals reveals that the set has dimensionality of 1 (A single function spans the whole set)

Ex:The constellation diagram(*) for a digital PAM with M = 4

(*)Constellation diagram: The representation of a signal modulated by a certain digital modulation scheme

Time domain representation of a pulse amplitude modulated signal

Note the change in the amplitude of the carrier (modulated signal) as the modulating digital data sequence changes

b) Phase Modulated Signals (Phase Shift

Keying) (PSK)

In phase shift keying, the M-ary pulse amplitude modulator output is one of the M possible waveforms, each differing from each other in their discrete phases.(It is the phase of the carrier that is modulated)

For PSK, the m-th signal waveform dened for a duration of time period T may be represented as:

An orthogonal signal expansion on phase modulated signals reveals that the set has dimensionality of 2 (One for the sine term and onether one for the cosine term)

Ex:The constellation diagram for a digital PSK with M = 8

Time domain representation of a phase modulated signal

Note the abrupt change in the phase of the carrier (shown in gray) as the modulating signal (shown in blue) changes

c) Quadrature Amplitude Modulated Signals

(QAM)

It is possible to employ PAM on both a cosine and a sine signal so as to increase the overall bandwidth efciency. This is achieved by simultaneously impressing two seperate k-bit symbols from information sequence an on two quadrature carriers cos 2fct and sin 2fct. The resulting modulation technique is called QAM (In some literature QAM is also called quadrature PAM) .
For QAM, the m-th signal waveform dened for a duration of time period T may be represented as:

An orthogonal signal expansion on QAM modulated signals reveals that the set has dimensionality of 2

Ex:The constellation diagram for a digital QAM with M = 16

QAM signal waveforms may also be viewed as a combined amplitude and phase modulation. This is apparent if we express the signal waveforms as:

This means, we may select any combination of M1- level PAM and M2- level PSK to construct an M = M1 . M2 combined PAM-PSK constellation. This is actually another form for representation of the QAM signals.

OPTIMUM RECEIVERS FOR DIGITAL MODULATION FOR ADDITIVE WHITE GAUSSIAN NOISE CHANNEL

Noise is present in every communication process and that is the actual reason for using digital modulation. Since noise is not a deterministic phenomena, statistical methods and models must be used to deal with it

The noise sources in the communication channel such as the magnetic effects of the electronic circuitry at the transmitter and receiver, the weather conditions for the wireless channels and etc are many and and independent of each other. The central limit theorem states that the sum of many independent random variables converges to a gaussian distribution. This permits us to model the total noise by a Gaussian distribution.

Optimum Correlation Receiver

The function of the receiver is to separate the signal content from the noise content. For this reason the receiver is separated into two blocks. The rst block demodulates the received signal according to the modulation scheme used and the second block makes a decision on the demodulated signal. FIRST BLOCK>>In order to demodulate the received signal, the receiver rst converts the received waveform r(t) into N dimensional vector r where N is the dimensionality of the transmitted signal waveforms (For example N=1 for PAM and N=2 for PSK and QAM)

SECOND BLOCK BLOCK>> The detector block aims to make a decision on the transmitted signal in each signal interval based on the observation of the vector r in each interval such that the probability of a correct decision is maximized.
In other words, the detector bases its decision on the posterior probabilities Prob( signal sm was transmitted| r), for m = 1, 2, . . . ,M and chooses the one with maximum probability.

Gaussanity assumption enables to determine the probabilities and to make a decision based on the minimum distance metric.
The Block Diagram of an Optimum Correlation Receiver

SIMULATIONS

For simulations, several digital modulation methods are implemented in MATLAB code. In the transmitter end, the modulation methods of pulse amplitude modulation, phase shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation are implemented. For optimum detection, a correlation type demodulator that makes a decision based on the minimum distance metric is used. The channel noise is modeled as white Gaussian noise

Simulations are run to obtain the simulated error probabilities of the modulation methods. In simulations, the bit/symbol error probability performance of the modulation methods are measured at different signal to noise ratios. The bit/symbol error-rate (BER/SER) are dened as:

In order to minimize symbol error for single bit differences, Gray encoding is utilized in all constellations. The length of the simulations are arranged to be long enough to ensure a smooth BER curve reaching 10^(-6) The simulation interval is arranged according to the complexity of the simulations. For example the computational complexity of BPSK is low so an SNR interval of 0.5 dB is chosen for it. On the other hand computational complexity of QAM is much higher so an SNR interval of 2 dB is chosen for it. Theoretical error probabilities are also calculated for each scheme

SIMULATION RESULTS
a) BPSK Modulation (PAM with M=2)

b) QPSK Modulation (PSK with M=4)

c) 8PSK Modulation (PSK with M=8)

d) 16QAM Modulation (QAM with M=16)

COMPARISON OF THE IMPLEMENTED METHODS

The above graph that puts all the simulated BER curves together for all the implemented modulation methods, reveals that BPSK is best in terms of error probability whereas 16-QAM is the worst. It must also be noted that there is only a small difference between the performances of BPSK and QPSK. In terms of error probability the methods can be ordered from the best to worst as follows: BPSK>QPSK>8-PSK>16-QAM However this does not necessarily mean that BPSK is the best and 16QAM is the worst. When designing an actual system, all considerations like algorithm complexity, energy considerations and channel noise effects must be taken into account.

CONCLUSIONS
In this work:

Some of the widely used digital modulation methods are introduced The optimum demodulation techniques for these methods are presented under Gaussian noise assumption The performance analysis of the introduced digital modulation methods are done using MATLAB Final words: Nearly all of todays state of the art communication systems use digital communication. Digital modulation is an indispensable part of these systems.

It seems as if the academic interest on the area will continue at least for a few more decades.

Thank you !!! Questions & Answers