A Study of Pulse Modulation Techniques

Nabil Hilman Jaafar

Communication Technology Section, Universiti Kuala Lumpur British Malaysian Institute (UniKL-BMI),
Batu 8, Jalan Sungai Pusu, 53100 Kuala Lumpur.
nabilhilman@unikl.org
Abstract- This laboratory session is conducted to
describe the principles of the three pulse modulation
techniques which are pulse width modulation (PWM),
pulse position modulation (PPM) and pulse amplitude
modulation (PAM) over a digital transmission system. A
Digital Communication 1 circuit board is use on
F.A.C.E.T base unit is used to simulate and obtain the
results which is shown on the virtual oscilloscope. The
transmitter part of the board is the circuit that produces
the pulse modulated of digital signal. The message signal
from the transmitted pulse-modulated or digital signal
is then recovered and reconstructed at the receiver
section. The FILTER circuit in the PAM circuit block is
also functioning for recovering signal from PTM signals.
Digital signals are better because its noise immunity
characteristic compared to analog signal. Hence, digital
signals are much reliable for data transmission.
Index Terms Pulse Modulation.
I.

DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

As any other transmission system, digital

transmission is a process of data transmission over a
communication system which widely known consist
of at least a pair of transmitter and receiver or more.
The signals can be either in binary or in some other
form of discrete-level digital pulses. The original
information could be in analog signal which has been
converted into a series of digital pulses and being
converted back into analog form at receiver section or
originally in a digital-ready state. With the technology
of digital transmission systems, communication
systems equipments such as a pair of wires, coaxial
cable, or an optical fiber cable is needed to
interconnect the various points within that particular
system. Digital pulses are impossible to be
propagated through a wireless transmission system,
for example, the Earths atmosphere or in free space.

Figure 1: A simple communication system block diagram,

shows the transmitter and receiver section.

The first digital transmission system for the purpose

of carrying digitally encoded analog signals, such as

the human voice, over metallic wire cable between

telephone offices was developed by AT&T. In recent
years, digital transmission systems are used to carry
not only digitally encoded voice or video signals but
also source information in digital form directly
between computers and network.
The most important of digital transmission over
analog transmission is because of its noise immunity.
Digital signals are less interrupted by noise because it
is not necessary to evaluate the precise amplitude,
frequency, or phase to ascertain its logic condition.
Moreover, the pulses are evaluated during a precise
time interval, and a simple determination is made
whether the pulse is either below or above certain
reference level. Besides, digital transmission systems
are more resistant compared to analog transmission to
additive noise because the uses signal regeneration,
instead of signal amplification which is used for
analog signal transmission. Hence, transmission
errors can be detected and corrected easily than
analog signals.
II.

PULSE MODULATION

In pulse modulation, it generally

consists essentially analog information
sampling and transferring the pulses from
a source to a specific destination over a
physical transmission medium (ie, optical
fibre cable). There are four major methods of pulse
modulation include pulse width modulation (PWM),
pulse position modulation (PPM), pulse amplitude
modulation (PAM), and pulse code modulation
(PCM).
A. Pulse Width Modulation
PWM is also known as pulse duration modulation
(PDM) or pulse length modulation (PLM), as the
width (active part of the duty cycle) at constant
amplitude pulse is varied according to the amplitude
of the analog signal at the time the signal is sampled.
PWM signal at Figure 2 (c) shows that the amplitude
of sample 1 is lower than the amplitude of sample 2.
Thus, pulse 1 is narrower than pulse 2. It can be seen
that, the maximum analog signal amplitude produces
the widest pulse, and the minimum analog signal
amplitude produces the narrowest pulse.

B. Pulse Position Modulation

In pulse position modulation (PPM), the position
of a constantwidth pulse within a prescribed time
slot is varied depends on the amplitude of the sample
of the analog signal. By referring to the PPM signal
on Figure 2 (d), the higher the amplitude of the
analog signal, the far to the right the pulse is moved
and the lowest the amplitude, the far to left the pulse
is position. Note that the amplitude of PPM signals is
constant.

Figure 2 (f). PCM is the only digitally encoded

modulation technique shown in Figure 2 that is
widely used for digital transmission.
With PCM, the pulses are of fixed length and fixed
amplitude. PCM is a binary system where a pulse or
lack of a pulse within a prescribed time slot
represents either logic 1 or a logic 0 condition.

C. Pulse Amplitude Modulation

With pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), the

amplitude of a constant-width, constant-position
pulse is varied according to the amplitude of the
sample of the analog signal. The PAM shown in
Figure 2 (e), where it can be observed that the
amplitude of a pulse is following the amplitude of the
analog signal. In other words, PAM waveforms
resemble the original analog signal more than the
waveforms of PWM and PPM.
Figure 2: Different form of modulated signal over different
modulation techniques (PAM, PWM and PPM).

D. Pulse Code Modulation

Pulse code modulation (PCM) on the other hand is
different compare to PAM, PWM and PPM. PCM
analog signal is sampled and then converted into a
series of n-bit binary code for transmission purpose.
Each code has the same number of bits and requires
the same length of time for transmission as shown in

Figure 3: Simplified block diagram of a single-channel, simplex

PCM transmission system.

Figure 2 shows a block diagram of a simplified

single-channel, simplex (one-way only) system. The

bandpass filter limits the frequency of the analog

input signal to the standard voice-band frequency
which has a range between 300 Hz to 3000 Hz. The
sample-and-hold circuit periodically samples the
input of analog signal and converts those samples to a
multilevel PAM signal. The digital-to-analog
converter (DAC) converts the PAM samples into
parallel PCM codes, which are converted to serial
binary data in the parallel-to-serial converter and
then the outputted onto the transmission line as serial
digital pulses. Repeaters are placed to regenerate
digital pulses.

message signals are synchronized with the sample

signals so that it can be easily observe and analyze
the relationships of the message, sample and pulse
signals with the virtual oscilloscope.

IV.
A

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

Pulse Amplitude Modulation

In the receiver, the serial-to-parallel converter

converts serial pulses to parallel PCM codes. Then
the DAC converts the PCM codes to multilevel PAM
signals. A low pass filter then converts the PAM
signals back to its original form.
III.

METHODOLOGY

This laboratory session is conducted by using the

Lab-Volts Digital Communication 1 Model 91022
circuit board on the FACET base unit. The Digital
Communications 1 course provides comprehensive,
hands-on-instruction in the terminology principles
and applications of digital circuits, including: Sample,
Sample/Hold, Adder, Ramp Generator, Comparator,
Limiter, Filter CODEC, PLL, Compressor and others.
By following the designed instructional program Unit
1 module which is the Introduction to Digital
Communications 1, a quick and precise hands-on
training was carried out.

Figure 10: Figure above represent the message signal (green sine
wave) and the sample pulse (blue).

Theoretically, pulse amplitude modulation changes

in terms of its amplitude. The height of the modulated
signal pulse is depending on the message signals
amplitude. It has a constant-width and constantposition.

The Exercise 1 (Digital Communication

Concepts) is divided into three sections which are
pulse amplitude (PAM) circuit block signals, pulse
time modulation (PTM) circuit block signals and the
pulse code modulation (PCM) circuit block signals.

Figure 11: Pulse amplitude modulated signal

Figure 4: Lab-Volts Digital Communications 1 circuit block that is

used in the laboratory session.

On the circuit board, there are two internally

generated message signals. There are M1 and M2.
M1 is a sine wave about 5Vpk-pk and 1 kHz. While on
the other hand, M2 is a sine wave which is about
5Vpk-pk 2 kHz. In each circuit board, the M1 and M2

Figure 11 represents the pulse amplitude

modulated signal (blue). The result shows that the
amplitude of the modulated signal is following the
amplitude of the message signal. The higher the
amplitude of the message signal, the higher the pulse
of the modulated signal, vice versa. In other word,
PAM waveforms resemble the original analog signal
more than the waveforms for PWM and PPM. It can
be seen that some of the pulses are affected to noises
along the transmission process.

Figure 12: PAM signals after being regenerated back to analog

signal at FILTER section.

The PAM signals that we obtained from the Figure

11 is then being converted back to analog form.The
process is done at the FILTER section on PAM circuit
block. The M2 message signal from the FILTER
output has the same frequency as the original M2
message signal. This is because the 8 kHz SP
frequency is greater than two times the M2 frequency.
E. Pulse Width Modulation
In pulse width modulation, the width of the pulse
is the variable while the amplitude is constant. The
higher the amplitude of message signal (analog), the
wider the modulated pulse. The results are as shown
below in Figure 13.

Figure 14: Reconstructed message signal.

As can be observed on the Figure 14, the message

signal is constructed back to its original state before
its transmitted. The process is done at the FILTER on
PAM circuit block.
F.

Pulse Position Modulation

Pulse position modulation, is also categorize under

PTM because its varying in time. Technically, the
position of the pulse will move more to the right
when the message signal is high. While the pulse will
move more to the left, which indicates the low level
signal. The waveform are as shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15: Pulse position modulation (PPM) signal.

Figure 13: Pulse width modulation (PWM) signal.

The blue waveforms shown on the oscilloscope is

the pulse width modulate (PWM) signal. It varies on
its pulse width. The highest peak of the message
signal (green sine wave) is resembled by the widest
PWM signal while the narrowest pulse resembled the
lowest message signal amplitude.

As can be seen on the waveforms shown in Figure

15, the pulse remain in its amplitude and width. The
only varies is its position. The higher the message
signal (M1), the more to the right the sampled pulse
is moved and the lower the message signal, the more
to the left the sampled pulse is moved.
Figure 16 shows the reconstructed signal of the
pulse position modulation (PPM). It recover back its
form as the original signal.

circuit board is use on F.A.C.E.T base unit is used to

simulate and obtain the results which is shown on the
virtual oscilloscope. Differences on different pulse
modulation technique can be seen from the results
obtained. PAM varying in amplitude, PWM changes
in terms of its width and PPM varying in position.
Lastly, pulse modulation consists essentially of
sampling analog information signals, and then
converting those samples into discrete pulses and
transporting the pulses from a source to a destination
over physical transmission medium. Hence, digital
signal is much better than analog signal, because of
its premium benefit, noise immunity.

.
Figure 16: Regenerated PPM signal

V.

CONCLUSIONS

It can be conclude that this paper presented a

study of several different type of pulse modulation
methods. They are pulse width modulation (PWM),
pulse position modulation (PPM) and pulse
amplitude modulation (PAM) over a digital
transmission system. A Digital Communication 1

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[3] Sklar.
B,
(2002)
Digital
Communications:
Fundamentals and Applications. 2nd edn. Prentice Hall