1960 T R A N S AIC

R TEI O N S ON COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS 87

Comparison of PSK vs FSK and PSK-AM vs FSK-AM

Binary-Coded Transmission Systems*
A. B. GLENN,t SENIOR MEMBER, IRE

Summary-The performance of phaseshift keyed (PSK), fre- P(1) = transmitted power.

quency shift keyed (FSK), PSK amplitude modulation (PSK-AM),
Q(1) = envelope of quadrature component.
and FSK amplitude modulation (FSK-AM), systems are compared
forbinarycoded transmission in thepresence of additivewhite
r = operating
range.
Gaussian noise. This performance is based on the relative prob- R a = receiver antenna
radiation resistance.
ability of error, operating range, required system bandwidth, and TFSK = operating
range of PSK system.
system frequency instability.The important subjects of improvement operating range of FSK-AM system.
thresholds, some aspects of statistical decision theory, and channel operating range of PSK system.
characterization are briefly discussed.
operating range of PSK-AM system.
available power in receiving antenna.
LISTOF SYMBOLS
signal-to-noise power ratio.
A =amplitude of main carrier
PSK-AM
for antenna temperature.
or FSII-AM systems. pulsed carrier duration.
A, = effective area of receiving antenna. peakvalue of pulsed carrier signal.
Bl = bandwidth of matched filter. envelope of output signal fromproduct
B I F = bandwidth of IF amplifier. demodulator.
(BIF)pSK-AM = I F amplifier bandwidth for FSK-AM peak value of reference voltage.
system. v,/vT.
(BIF)PSK-AM = IF amplifier bandwidth forFSK-AM angular difference between signal and
system. reference voltage.
( C / N ) or CNR = carrier-to-noise-power ratio. modulation index.
(C/N)psK-.kM = subcarrier-to-noise ratioin IF ampli- phase of PSK carrier,
fier for PSK-AM system. 0 for a mark,
(C/’N)FsK-.\Lx = subcarrier to noise power ratioin IF a for a space.
amplifier in FSK-AM system. f frequency instability.
CF = crest factor = “peak” value/rms value. correlation coefficient.
D = frequency shift of the carrier from the main carrier radian frequency.
meanfrequency of the mark and space
carrier frequencies. I. INTRODUCTION
E = signal
energy
per bit = ST,.
HE performance of the PSK-AM, FSK-AM, PSK
E a = open-circuited antenna voltage a t re-
and FSK systems are comparedfor binary-coded
ceiver.
transmission inthe presence of whiteadditive
F = receiver noise figure.
Gaussian noise from the aspect of the relative probability
frn = output filter bandwidth.
of error, operating range, and required system bandwidth.‘
GW = gain in transmitting antenna. Since the operating range and system bandwidth may be
G(7) = gain
in receiving antenna. dependent upon the system frequency
stability, the
dt) = modulating
function. performance as a function of the frequency instability is
h (t) = impulse response of filter. analyzed. The important
subjects of improvement
I(1, = envelope of in-phase component. thresholds, some aspects of statistical decision theory,
k = Boltzmann’s constant.
and channel characterization are briefly discussed.
IC 1 = AM
demodulator constant. A binary communications system is 2 communications
Wl = modulating
factor.
system in which the informationis in the form of two
M, = system
margin.
symbols which will be denoted by a LLmark” and a LLspace”.
NO = noise power density.
The encoding of these symbols may represent many kinds
Palpn = carrier-to-noise ratio for PSK-AM and of messages. Shannonhas shown that the message will
FSK-AM systems.
have the highest information content when the mark and
pm = message probability.
space have the same probability of occurrence and when
P. error
=probability.
bit
A. B. Glenn, “Performance analysis of a data link system,” IRE
* Received by the PGCS, September 21, 1959. TRANS.ONCOLlMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, VOl. (28-7, pp. 14-24; May,
t Airborne Systems Dlv., RCA, Camden, N. J. 1959.

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 88 T R AIN
R SEA C T I O N S ON COMMUNICATIONS
SYSTEMS June
there is no intersymbol dependence. At the receiver it is
known that at a particular time interval one of the two
signals has been transmitted. The receiver will then decide
which of thetwowastransmittedduringthistime
interval. In the presence of interference such as noise or
fading, the decision is based on the digit tvhich is more
likely to have produced the received signal.
11. PsK SYSTEM

A phase shift keyed signal (PSK) is expressed as2

f(t) = T"
-- TO
t1 LOY PASS OUTPUT FILTER
l/oej(",,+o)
1
2 <t<Y' (1)

= 0, elsewhere.
I F S I G N A L

Let e = 0 for a mark,

= T for a space.
The frequency spectrum is (b)
Fig. I-PSK signal and noise spectral densities, (a) before detection,
(b) after detection.

This spectrum is a sin Ole form displaced from the origin

by G ~ The
. detection of a mark or a space maybe detected
by
phase-lockedsynchronous detectors.
Thespectral
densities before and after detection are shown in Fig. 1.
Let the desired signal v, and the reference signal v, be - -
-
applied t o a diode detector as shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2-Synchronous or product detector.
The output voltage is
vo(t) = [v:+ v: + 2VOV, cos I y P (3) = 0, elsewhere
where
V~ = voCOS (w,t + e), (4)
To detect a mark or a space, the reference oscillator
0, = v,cos (w,t + a!), ( 5 ) must be in phase with the desired signal, or for the mark
r = e--, (6) e = 0 and for the space e = T. This requires a phase-
locked oscillator or a phase detector.
v,
>> vo, (7) Theabove expression fortheoutputvoltage of the
or synchronous detector shows that the detector is approxi-
mately a linear device to the signal. Thus,. there is no
c0(t) = v,[1 X' + + 2s COS r]l/', degradation of SNR in the detection process, regardless
2 << I 2 = v,/v,. (8) of the magnitude of this ratio. If the reference voltage is
notinphasewiththe desired signal, the expansion of
Expand in a Taylor series and neglect higher powers of uo( t ) yields
x, then
vo(t) = V,(1 +
2 cos r), approx. (9)
vo(t) = I,,) cos a &(,) sin a! + (121
where I ( $ is
) the envelope of the in-phase c0mponent, and
The ac component is &($) is the envelope of the quadrature component.
_-I ' O < t < 5 T" In a synchronous detector, the reference voltage is in
vo(t) = v,
COS r,
2
(10) phase with the in-phase component of t.he signa,l; there-
fore, the distortion due to the quadrature component is
less than that of the envelope detector.Thedistortion
2 c. L. Cucci?, "Harmonics, Sidebands and Transients in Com- of a pulse due to the quadrature component is shown in
munications Engineering," McGraw-Hill Book CO.,I I ~ c .New
, York,
N. Y., ch. 19; 1952. Fig. 3.

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 19.60 Glenn: Comparison of Binary Coded Transmission Systems 89
H SENT

TIME
\
\/ OUADRATURE

Fig. 3-Effect of in-phase and quadrature components on resultant

signal.

111. FSK SYSTEM

A noncoherentfrequencyshiftkeyed (FSK) signal is

expressed for the mark frequency as
Fig. 4-Spectral densities of signal and noise before F M detection.

= 0, elsewhere,
and for the space frequency as
(14)
bl,- RESPONSE AMPLITUDE

DETECTED
POWER
I 1I SIGNAL POWER

I \1 A
= 0 elsewhere. (16)
The Fourier transform of these time functions shows a NOISE POWER
sin 8 / 8 form of spectrum centered a t t h e mark and space
frequencies, respectively. The noise is assumed to be white
Gaussian distributed. The spectral densities of the signal
and noise before and after detection are shown in Figs.
, 4 and 5, respectively.

IV. IMPROVEMENT
THRESHOLDS
The curves shown in Fig. 6 illustrate the variation of
theoutput signal-to-noise ratio vs theinput signal-to-
noise ratio for the differentmodulationsystems. The
I

;,f !y -eD+
I
I

4- 'f

Fig. 5-Spectrum of signal and noise after FM detection.

improvementthresholdorthresholdpoint is reached
approximately when the carrier and interference voltages
attain the same amplitudes. The presence of an improve-
ment threshold is characteristic of all modulation detectors
whose operation depends upon the amplitude, phase, and .2. I
t 1 . 1
frequencyrelations between the transmitter carrier and N 'OUT

one or more setsof sidebands. This includes all modulation

systems which containacarrier.When the carrier is
supplied at the receiver, such as for coherent PSK, there
is no improvement threshold.
When the signal-to-noise ratio exceeds the threshold
point,thedetector is able to use the coherence of the
signal carrier and its sidebands to give the desired signal
a magnified response withrespect to noise. Below this
threshold, the detector loses its capability to distinguish
the coherent sidebands; therefore, it loses its standard of
coherence. Below threshold, the variation of the output
0
SNR is more rapid for PM than for AM. The charact,er-
istics of FM, which assures low noise outDutin the
Fig. 6-Comparisonof PM and AM signals in the mesence of
presence of tt .high
input SNR, tend t o produce
more
a ' ~ random noise. -

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 90 IRE T R A N S A C T I O N S ON COMMUNICATIOXS S Y S T E M S June
rapiddeteriorationinperformance if this condition is applied to a high-& circuit which is tuned to the second
not met.3 harmonic of frequency and independent of the phase of
In thecoherent PSK system, where a noise-free reference the input signal. This double frequency signal is used to
is assumed to be present in the receiver, there is no phase lock a divide by two oscillator. The output of this
threshold.However, when the phase reference must be oscillator is then used as a phase-stable reference signal,
obtained from thesignal, such as for differentially coherent as its phasecharacteristic is notaffectedbythephase
PSI< or phase comparison systems, the threshold character- shifts in the transmitted signal. I n this way, a n improve-
isticsapproximately follow theamplitudemodulation ment in SNR is obtained for the referencesignal. The
case. input signal-to-noise ratiomust be above the threshold
The PSK system is the optimum binary system using conditions for this circuit. This SNR mill be dependent.
two signals which havea cross-correlation coefficient of upon the frequency pull in range andpull in time.
minus one. Or, the two signals are the negatives of each
other. I n a carrier system, this means that thetwo signals
di.ffer fromeach other only by aphasereversal of the
PHASE DELAY
carrier. In the ideal system, it is assumed that the phase DETECTOR LINE
. reference is known at the receiver. Since the phase refer- I
ence needed to distinguish between the two signals is not
available at the receiver in the practical case, this PSI<
systemfallssomewhatshort of the theoretical limit, in
rLyLRis
-7- OUTPUT

performance of a binary system.

A PSI< system which approaches the optimum system SPACE
MARK
MARK MARK SPACE
for high SNR ‘can be realized by sensilig phase changes
at the receiver. A convention can be adopted such that a
zero or space corresponds to 180 degrees change in phase
between successive transmitted signals and a one or mark
corresponds to no changeinphase between successive
signals. Since the reference phaseis also perturbedby
noise, the performance of thissystem will be degraded
from the ideal system. At bit error probabilities of IO-’
or less, the practical PSK system called the differentially
coherent PSK system is about 1 db lower in performance
thanthe idealsystem. In thispracticalsystem,the
X 2 FREQ
MULT H +FRE DIVIDER

RECEIVER
I
decision process depends upon the previously transmitted PRODUCT
signalfor the phasereference,thereforeresultingin DEMOD

adjacentbit dependence of theerrorprobabilityand.

causingatendencyfor the error to occur inpairs. A
systemwhichuses single errordetecting codes (parity
checks) will be severely penalized by this effect. (b)
A simpleway todetect phasechangesin adjacent
Fig. 7-Differentially coherent PSK receiver; (a) delay line tech-
symbols is shown in Fig. 7(a). The signal from the IF nique, (b) harmonic oscillator technique.
amplifier is split into two paths before it is phase-detected.
One path hasadelaytimeequalto one symbol. Two By increasing the pull in time, the SNR needed for this
signals applied to the phase detector will differ from one technique should be lower than the SNR needed for the
another by this phase delay of one symbol. If there is 180 delay line technique.Experimenta’l dataare needed to
degrees phase difference between the two signals, then the determine the minimum SNR necessary to phase lock an
output will be a negative voltage, and, if the two signals oscillator wit,hin a required .phase tolerance for different
are in phase, there will be a positive output voltage. As pull in frequency and time ranges.
the SNR decreases, the phase of the signals becomes less
definiteplus thefactthatthe envelope detectors will Lr. STATISTICAL DECISION
THEORY4-’

degrade the SNR. Thus,performance of this type of PSK
detection technique degrades as the SNR decreases over
the optimum where the noise-free reference voltageis’
assumed.
Another method of detecting the phase of the signal
is shown in Fig. 7(b). The input signal is passed through
a conventionalfull-wave rectifier. Theoutput is then
M. G. Crosby,“Frequencymodulation
a noise characteristics,”
PROC.
I R E , vol. 25, pp. 417-572; April, 1937.
Since the receiver is, in the last analysis,a decision
device, a decision rule is needed which may or may not
Staff, Mass. Inst. Tech., Cambridge, Mass., lecturenoteson
Reliable Long Range Communicat~ons;1959.
M. Schwartz, “Information Transmission,Modulation, and
Noise,” McGraw-Hill Book, Co., Inc., New York, N. Y., sec. 6-2;
1959.
J. G. Lawton,“Comparison of BinaryData Transmission,”
Proc. 1958 Conf. on Medical Electronics.
’S. Reiger, “Error probabilities of binarydata transmission
systemsin the presence of random noise,” 1953 I R E CONVEN-
TION RECORD, pt. 8, pp. 72-i9.

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 1960 Comparison
Glenn: of Binary Coded
Systems
Transmission 91
involve a threshold. The receiver must decide whether or If f ( t ) is applied to a filter whose impulse response is
not a signal is present and it must make thisdecision with h(t), then the output at t = T ois
some requiredprobability of error. The decision is a TO
“yes”or L‘nolloperation which may be determined by fo(6 = [ f(W(T0 - t> d t . (20)
means of a threshold device. The problem of decision
then resolves itself into the question of whetherornot Comparing this expression with the preceding expres-
the signal exceeds the threshold. If noise alone is present, sion, the decision rule can be realized. Connect two linear
the threshold should not be exceeded, and, if signal plus matched filters havingimpulse responses s1 ( T o - t )
noise is present, the thresholdshouldbe exceeded. As and sz ( T o - t ) to synchronous detectors and connect the
the noise can have any amplitude with a finite probability, outputs to a comparison circuit as shown in Fig. 8. The
it is evident that noise alone will occasionally exceed the synchronous detectors will be operated so that the signal
threshold and cause triggering of the systemoutput from the filters is sampled a t t = To.If the output of the
circuits. This event causes an error and the probability first detector exceeds the second detector, announce that
of this happening canbe decreased by raising the threshold s l ( t ) is present;otherwise,report that s2(t) is present.
sufficiently high. Another way is to have a positive pulse if s,(t) is present
The receiver will utilize the received waveform and a and a negative pulse if s,(t) is present.
knowledge of the transmitted waveforms. For a binary-
coded data transmissionsystem, the twotransmitted
signals areeither s,(t) or s,(t). Assume thatthe two
symbols have the same probability of occurrence and that
there is no intersymbol dependence. The received symbol
consists of one known signal s l ( t ) , or anotherknown
signal sz(t), andineither case additiveGaussian noise
n 0).
The signals sl(t) and s2(t) may represent a mark and
space and be carriers of different frequencies as in FSK. A
device is needed for each interval in the message to decide u -
which of the two possible signals mas transmitted. Fig. 8-Decision circuit with matched filters.
If f ( t ) is the received signal in the interval 0 < t < To,
s l ( t ) will beannounced, if the meansquare difference
between f ( t ) and sl(t) is less than the mean square differ- Now consider the condition for noncoherent detection.
ence between f ( t ) and s2(t). If the oppositecondition is This is for the random phase FSIi type of signal. That is,
satisfied, then the signal s2(t) is present. This is expressed the synchronous detectors are replaced by envelope
mathematically as detectors and the two filters are tuned to the mark and
space frequencies. Then it ban be shown that a mark or
s l ( t ) is announced if

1 lTo f(t)sl(t)d t I 1 LTo

> f(t)dt)dt 1 , (20

and s z ( t ) or a space is announced otherwise.

Physically, this equation means that the two received
waveforms are passed through the two matched filters, and
the envelopes at the outputs are compared at the end of
1 Expandingtheintegrandsand cancelling the common the symbol. It follows intuitively that, if the filters were
terms, (17) then becomes notmatched filters, the sameresult would hold. As
matched filters are difficult if not impossible to realize,
other types such as the so-called “ideal” type which may
be closely approximatedin practicebycrystalor me-
chanical filters or double tuned LC filters may be used.
Actually, the difference in SNR obtainedfromthese
This equation can be interpreted4 either as “selecting practical filters is small (less then 1 db) compared to the
that waveform whose cross-correlation with f ( t ) is largest,” SNR from the matched filters5 It is necessary to adjust
lending to the name of correlation detection, or as passing the bandwidth of thesepracticalfiltersformaximum
“ f ( t ) through filters which are matched to thesignals sl(t) SNR. Also, the envelopes shouldbecompared atthe
and s2(t) and selecting the signal correspondingto thefilter maximum values which may not occur at the end of the
whose output at t = Tois largest,” lending to the name symbol.
matched filter detection. Mathematically,correlation de- To evaluate the probability of error, it is convenient
tection and matched filter detection are ident,ical. to take the. matched filter form of detector. f(t) is the

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 92 IRE TRANSACTIONS O N COI"UNICA1'IONS S Y S T E M S
input to the filter with impulse response
h(t) = Sl(2', - t ) - s,(T, - 1 ) .
If the output at t = To exceeds zero, announce s,(l);
otherwise, announce s2(t).Since the filter is linear and the
input noise Gaussian, the sample of the output is Gaus-
sian distributed with amean of V , or - V o depending
upon whether sl(l) or s2(t) was present. See Fig. 9.
If sl(t) and s,(t) are equally likely to be transmit.ted and
the decision rule follows (19) and (21), then the probability
of error can be s h o ~ n ' . ~ bet o
where
E is the average signal energy per received symbol,
p is the finitetimecorrelation coefficient of the two
waveforms, s,(l) and sz(t) which ranges from
-1 I P 51,
N o is the noise power density.
June
The difference betlveen the coherent PSK and non-
coherent FSK system is about 4 db for low error prob-
(22) abilities. The 3-db difference is due t o the difference in the
correlation coefficient of the two transmitted waveforms
for the PSK and FSK signals. The additional 1-db differ-
ence is explained as follows.
Acoherent PSK systemrequiresa knowledge of the
phase as well as the frequency and envelope of the ex-
pected waveforms. In a practical FSIi system, the phase
information will not be known at the receiver. When the
phase is known, the filter output can be sampled 'at the
precise instant when the expected output reaches a
maximum. However, if the carrier phase is not known, i t
is necessary t o form the envelope of the matched filter
output signal and sample the signal at its peak value. As
SPACE t NOISE
tI pv
MARK+ NOISE

This equation shows ,that P , is a minimum forp = 1. P , ,-

decreases as the normalized signal-to-noise ratio E / N ,

ratio increases. p = - 1 requires that
s,(t) = -sz(t>. (24)
I n a carrier system, p = - 1 if t.he phase of sl(t) is 180
degrees different from s2(t). As p + +
1, or as s,(t) -+
sP(t),the error probability. approaches $. The case p = 0
arises from the condition where sl(t) and s2(t) are function- Fig. 9-Probability density distribution of signal plus noise.
ally related so that. the integral of their product is equal
t o zero.
I .o
The phase reference needed t o distinguish s,(t) is not
available at the receiver, and the '!differentially" coherent
PSK systemisused. Thebiterrorprobability of this
system has been shown637 to b'e
10-1
p e = $-"/No. (25)
Since the reference phase is perturbed by noise, and one
additional signal interval is needed to start the process, it 10-2
is expected that theerror probability of this systemshould
be higher than theideal coherent type of system. For large
E / N o , the difference between the twosystems is small.
This is shown in Fig. 10. At E / N o below 3 db, there is a I 0-3
rapid degradation of the differentially PSI( system.
'For the noncoherent FSK system, the selection of the
signal most likely to have been received depends entirely
on an examination of the envelope of the. carrier of the I 0-4
'signal. The FSK system has the very important practical
adva.ntage that the setting of the decision threshold is
independent of the signal level. I n other words, the
channel having the larger envelope is more likely to con- I 0-5

tainthe signal. It has been thatthe error

prob-
ability for the noncoherent FSK system is
p e = $e--B/2No (26)

For low error probabilities, there will be a 3-db difference

between the differentially coherent PSK system and the Fig. l(t1'robability of bit error vs normalized
noncoherent FSK system. This is shown in Fig. 10. signal-power-to-noise-power.

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1960 Comparison
Glenn:
the formulation of the envelope is affected by both the
in-phase andquadrature noise components, the error
probability will be increased for the noncoherent system
compared to the coherent case where only the in-phase
noise components affect the amplitude of the sample.
The analysis of errorprobabilityfor the different
systemsassumes that the receiver islinear up to the
demodulator and that matched filters are used. Also, the
cross-correlation of noise in the two filters used for FSK
is negligibly small. When there are nonlinearities such as
limiters, the receiver first threshold point occurs at the
limiter inputapproximately when the desired and un-
desired signal voltages attain the same pea.k amplitudes.
If the undesired signal is a random function then there will
be a certain probability that this signal will be between
certainvalues. For example, if the undesiredsignalis
Gaussian noise, the probability that the noise amplitude
will exceed four times the rms value is about one in ten
thousand. For t,his case, the so-called crest factor ( C F ) is
equal t o 4. For this example, the SNR before limiting
will be shown in Section VI to be 8 to 1 or 9 db.
The analysis of errorprobability uses E / N o the nor-
of Binary Coded Transkission
Systems 93
after demodulationmust besatisfied. I n a low capture
ratio FSK system, if the threshold condition at the input
to the limiter is satisfied, the thresholdcondition after
demodulation will be satisfied.
VI. ANALYSISOF PSI< AND FSK RECEIVERS
The block diagrams of optimum and differentially
coherent PSK receivers are shown in Fig. 11. The optimum
PSK receiver assumes knowledge of the phase of the signal
at the receiver, whereas the differentially coherent PSK
receiver obtains this information from the signal. Block
diagrams of noncoherent FSK receivers are shown in
Figs. 12 to 14.
A . Noncoherent Dual-Filter Linear FSK and Differentially
Coherent PSK Receivers
The firstcomparison will be betweenanoncoherent
FSK two-filter linear receiver and differentially coherent
LOW PASS
FILTER F ‘ i ’ O U l i
PHASE
LOCKED

malized SNR, because the error probability only depends

upon the desired signal energy per bit and noise spectral
density.Therefore, the E / N o isindependent of band- TUNER
DELAY PHASE
DETECTOR
width. The relationship between the normalized SNR and
the average SKR (during the pulse duration) is
-
(b)
X 2 FREQ i FREQ
MULT DIVIDER

where f m is the noise bandwidth of the matchedfilter, TUNER

N
and T o is the pulse duration. PRODUCT
DEMO0

If the assumption5 that the bandwidth of the matched

filter is equal to the frequency of the first zero in its
amplitude characteristic, then the bandwidth f m is equal
to l / T o .Or, f m T o = 1. Fig. 11-(a) Coherent PSK receiver, (b) differentially coherent PSK
If amatched filter isnot used, but afilter closely receiver, (c) differentially coherent PSK receiver.
approximated by the iiideal” type is used, this relation-
ship is also approximately true. It has been shown that
the difference in SNR between a n “ideal” type filter and a
matchedfilter is about 0.8 db. I n short, the maximum
SNR occurs when fmTo 1, where f m is the noise band-
width for both the matched and “ideal” type filters. If
the bandwidth of the filters before demodulationmust
be increased due to system frequency instabilityor Doppler
shifts, then post-detection filtering will improve the
decision process. The SNR after post-detectionfiltering
must then satisfy the decision criteria shown by Fig. 10.
If matched filters are notused, then the difference in SNR
between that obtained inthe matched filter andthat Fig. 13-FSK 2-filter linear discriminator nonlinear receiver.
obtained in the actual filter must be compensated by an
increased input signal. Or, the sensitivity of the system
is reduced proportionately.
If there issignal limiting inthe system, then therewill be
at least two threshold conditions which must be satisfied.
These are the threshold condition before limiting and the
threshold condition after demodulation. If the receiver is
linear up t o the demodulator then the threshold conditions Fig. 14-FSK 2-filter linear receiver.

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 94 T R A N S AICRTEI O N S
and coherent PSI< receivers. These receivers are shown
inFigs. 14 and 11, respectively. Thebandwidthand
CNR at point a inFig. 14 before the mark and space
filters are B,F and C‘/N, respectively. It is obvious that
the “ideal”pass band for each filter would need to be
B, + 2 A F , where AF is the increased bandwidth re-
sultingfromfrequencyinstability. As previously men-
tioned, the mark and spacefrequenciesshouldbe suffi-
ciently separated to insure isolation between “practical”
filters with finite attenuation rates. The noise bandwidth
of each practical filter is B , +
AP. Therefore, the approxi-
mate total noise bandwidth is B,F w 2(B, AF). + andafterdetection.
The SNR, after either filter, a t point b is
ON COMMUNICATIONS
SYSTEMS June
For the phase comparison or differential PSI< receiver,
the CNR should exceed the threshold level of the phase
detector (CNR > 3), or the output CNRwill be degraded
from the input CNR. The PSK receivers shown in Fig.
11 can tolerate only relatively small frequency shifts such
that A F / B l < 3. dbovethisvalue,thesecircuitsare
inadequate.However, PSK demodulators have been
developed that can tolerate moderately larger frequency
errors.
Eqs. (32) and (33) give the relationship of the output
SNR as a function of the CNR, and bandwidths before
It is now necessary t o relate the
average SNR to the normalized SNR so that the error
probability curves can be used. For a matched filter,

If an envelope detector is used, then the input SNR

must be a t least 3 for negligible degradation of the output Therefore, for noncoherent linear FSIi receiver and SNR
SNR.’ Therefore, the SNR at point c after detection is before detection > 3,

The SNR at point d after the low-pass filter witha

bandwidth f,n for optimum SNR is approximately and, differentially coherent PSK receiver and SXR before
detection > 3,

From the noise figure definition andtherelationship

between transmitted power in theantennaandthe
available received power, t h e transmission range can be
shown to be

The coefficient is 0.84 instead of 0.5 for large SNR

because the noise contributedbythe channel which
contains the desired signal isgreater thanthe noise = the average transmitted power,
contributed by the channel which does not contain the = the gain of the transmitting antenna,
desired signal. Or, the noise contributed by the modula- = the effective area of the receiving antenna =
tion cross products of the signal and noise components 0.08 X2G, ,
( s x n )is greater than thenoise contributed by themodula- = gain of receiving antenna,
tion cross products of noise components ( n x n ) for large = is the wavelength of the signal,
SNR. = 4.1 x watt-second,
For the PSI< coherent receiver shown inFig. I 1(a), = bandwidth before demodulation,
the output SNR is = receiver noise figure,
= carrier-to-noise ratio, and
(33)- = systemmarginnecessaryfor some required
percentage of satisfactoryoperationundera
where fading environment.
BIF = B1 + AF,
The ratio of the operating ranges for the FSK and PSK
C/N = CNR at the input of the detector,
B, = 2 f m , and fm is thebandwidth of the low-pass systems is
filter for optimum SNR.

8.E. G,., Fubini and D. C. Johnson, “Signal-to-noise ratio in AM

recelvers, PROC. IRE, vol. 36, pp. 1461-1466; December, 1948.

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1960 Comparison
Glenn: of Binary Coded Transmission
Systems 95
Substituting (35) and (36) into (38), weget for an error probability of 1 in 10,000 is
C
- = 8. (43)

It has been shown13 that for the case of a symmetrical

band-pass limiter the SNR at the limiter outputis directly
For low bit error probabilities, as shown by Fig. 10, the proportional to the SNR at the limiterinput.Thisis
difference in BIN, for the differentially coherent PSK dueprimarily to the fact that the limiteroutputhas
and noncoherent FSK systems is 3 db. beenfiltered so that it containsonlythosefrequency
Or, the ratio in ranges for the same error probability of components in the immediate vicinity- of the input fre-
the two systems is quencies. The limitingactionredistributes the great,er
part of the noise energyintocomponentsbeyond the
~DPSK -
- 3.8dh. (40) upper cutoff frequency of theoutputfilter, whereas
TFSK
practicallyall of the signal energyremainswithin the
There is al-db increase inthisrangeratioforthe pass band of the output filter (fm T o = 1).
coherent PSK system. Sincealineardiscriminatorhas little significance for
The significant characteristics of the coherent PSK, digitalcommunicationssuch as FSK, analysis of the
differentially coherent PSK, and the noncoherent linear SNR through the discriminator is ma.de by considering
FSK systems is that the range ratio isindependent of the theequivalentcircuit,showninFig. 14, frompoint a
frequency instability. This is because the decision is made to e. The only difference is that the bandwidths of the
afterthe post-detectionfilter,andthe CNR before markandspacefiltersaremanytimeslargerthan B,
detection is above the threshold of the detector. (about 10 B l ) .For large SNR, Da.venport hasshown that
the SNR afterlimitingis 3 dblargerthanthe SNR
before limiting. Thus, the outputSNR after thedemodula-
B. Noncoherent Nonlinear Single-Filter FSK Receiver tion is
The next FSK system to beanalyzed is the receiver
using “heavy”limitingand a lineardescriminator. A
blockdiagram of this receiver is shown in Fig. 12. It
is important that the “discriminator” be broadband for where
optimum
results when heavy
limiting
is Also,
thebandwidth of thelimiters shouldbesufficiently C
- = CNR before limiting
broad so the zero crossings of the signal are negligibly N
affected. Bandwidths of the order of ten times the IF
(BIF)L = output bandwidth of the limiter (equivalent
bandwidth are satisfactory for both the limiter and the
to point a in Fig. 14).
discriminator. The bandwidth before the limiter is

B,, = 20 + B1 + AF (41)
fm = bandwidth of the low-pass filter (fm NN 11) .
-y

Thebiterrorprobabilityhas beenshown t o depend

where D is the frequency shift of the carrierfromthe
upon the signal energy per bit and the noise density for
mean frequency of the mark and space frequencies. This
whiteGaussian noise. Usually,additionalinformation
shift is approximately equal to f m .
isneeded t o characterizemorecompletelyarandom
As previously discussed, the threshold condition at the
process. Knowledge of the average .number, the variance,
input of the limiter must be satisfied.
and the interval between the zero crossings persecond
Thethreshold CNR before limiting is related to the
of the signal plus noise may supply the additional infor-
crest factor C F by‘
mationincharacterizingarandom process,14 providing
c (CF)2 that the detector utilizes the zero crossing properties of t.he
N - 2 whole process. The variance t o be expected in the number
of zeros persecond of arandom process will decrease
The crestfactor C F is determinedfromthenormal
as the SNR increases, agreeing with physical intuition.
distribution function.“ The CNR at the threshold point
The averagenumber of zero crossings is stronglyde-
pendent on the characteristics of the random process and
the system parameters. The intervals between the zero
i. Granlund,“Interferencein Frequency Modulation Recep-
tion, Res. Lab. Electronics, Mass. Inst. Tech.,Cambridge,Tech.
Rept. No. 42; January, 1949.
lo M. S. Corrington, “FM distortion caused by common and
adjacent channel interference,” RCA Rev.; December, 1946. 13 W. B. Davenport, Jr., “Signal to noise ratioin band-pass
D.,,Middleton,“Theoreticalsignal to noise ratio of F-At re- limiters,” J. A p p l . Phys., vol. 24; June, 1953.
ceivers, J. A p p l . Phys vol. 20; April, 1949. 14 J. S. Bendat, “Principles and Applications of Random Noise
12 Lawton, op. cit., d g . 5. Theory,” John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, N.Y., ch. 10; 1958.

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 96 IRE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS June
crossings 0 ill become moreuniform andapproachthe two-filter nonlinear FSK receivers is approximately
desired signal frequency asthe SNR increases. These
characteristics mill have a sharpthreshold which, in
TDPSK
turn, mill dependupon the SNR before the detector." N

TFSK-NL
I n a low capture ratio receiver, the threshold condition
after detection will alwaysbe satisfied if the threshold
condition before the limiter is satisfied. For CNR before detection of less than 3, the degradation
Eq. (37) shows that the range will be dependent upon of SNR in the detection process must then be accounted
the bandwidth of the receiver before limiting. This band- forindeterminingthe necessary E / N o t o satisfy the
width, in turn, depends upon the frequency instability. threshold criterion.
Increasing the bandwidth will increase the noise power
N , so that the signal power C must be thereby increased D. Operating Range lis A F I B , for PSI< and FXK Systems
t o satisfy the CNR thresholdcondition. The effect of the ratio of the increased bandwidth A F ,
which may be due t o frequency instability to theinforma-
C.,Noncoherent Nonlinear Dual-Filter F S K Receiver tionbandwidth B , before demodulationonoperating
range performance for the various types of FSK systems
The next receiver to consider is shown in Fig. 13, where and the differentiallycoherent PSK system is shown in
the single broad-band filter is replaced by two narrow- Fig. 15. Thesecurvesareplotted for equal effective
band filters. The bandwidth before limiting is radiated transmitted power, effective area of the receiving
antenna, receiver noise figure, a,ntenna temperature,
system margin, and the same bit error probability. For a
bit error probability of 1 part in 10,000,
.For the samesignal power at the limiter input, the
ratio of the CNR for the single and dual filter receivers
are, on the basis of their passband ratio,

where
(GIN), is theCNR of the single broad-bandfilter
receiver at the limiter input,
(GIN), is theCNR of thedual narrow-bandfilter
receiver at the limiter input.

Or, for the samethresholdcondition before limiting

the available signal power X,, for the twonarrow-band
filterreceiverscompared to the availablesignal power
Sa,for the single broad-band filter receiver is

AF/B, -; ,,
Fig. 15-Operating range vs AF/B1.

Curve 1 shows that the ratio of the range performance

of the differentiallycoherent PSK tothe noncoherent
where
FSK linear receiver (Fig. 14) is independent of A F / B ,
D 20 and is 3.8 db. This value is primarily due to thedifference
modulation index p = - = - e (49) incorrelationbetween thetwotransmitted waveforms.
f m Bl
Curve 2 shows the ratio of rangeperformance of the
The relationship shown in (48) indicates that when differentially coherent PSK to the dual filter noncoherent
AF/Bl is small compared t o 2, and p > 2 is significant, nonlinear FSK and optimum post-detection
filtering
improvement in sensitivity or range can be realized with (Fig. 13) systems. It is seen that for AF/Bl > 1, the
the two-filter receiver compared to the single broad-band thresholdcondition at the limiterinputhas a signifi-
filter FSK receiver. cant adverse effect upon the performance of this type of
T- h
-- e
- m m ratio
..n_
0- ~ ~ of the differentially coherent PSK and
~
FSK receiver compared to thelinear type of FSK'receiver.

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1460 Comparison
Glenn: of Binary Coded Transmission
Systems 97
A typical example of these systems is given for the follow- 4) The signal experiences a time delay and a loss, both
ing conditions: of which may be time-varying.
biterrorprobability P, = A careful consideration shows that time-varying
a
mark or space duration To = 1.33 milliseconds, linear network with two or more terminal paths may be
“IF” filter bandwidth B , = 750 cps, used to characterize the variouschannels.Trammission
postdetection filter f m = 375 cps. through a two-terminal pair channel may be represented
by the following equation
Table I shows the performance as a function of A F I B , .
It is seen that this follows the general Characteristics. Edt) = K(O E i d t ) + E,(t). (51)
This equation indicates that the channel may operate
TABTX I
P~ = 10-4 on the signal in a multiplicative fashion, by K(t), and it
may also add to the signal by a certain amount E,(t).
Therefore, there aretwo major categories into which these
effects of the channel may be divided, that is,multi-
plicative and additive disturbances.
The multiplicative type of disturbance is due to a
10 21.6 8 1.0 0.8 8 0.6 5.2
10.8 12.5 fadingtransmissionmedium andantennafluctuations
5 11.6 1.3 8 1.1 8 0.8 3.8
5.8 6.3
2 5.6 8 2.6 2.3 2.8 0.8 8 2.6 2.5 (important for airborne-type a n t e n 1 d 5 ) . T h effect
e of the
0 1.6 8 8.0 8.0 8 0.8 1.4
0.8 0 fading medium can be divided into long and short-term
variations. The long-termvariationsarepractically in-
dependent of frequency and location. Diurnal and yearly
Curve 3 shows the ratio of the range performance of the variations are considered long-term variations. The short-
two-filter linear FSIC tothe two-filternonlinear FSK term variations of the received signal, which may take
systems. This curve shows that the performance is ap- place in a fraction of a second, are generally uncorrelated
proximately equal for A F I B , < 1. Practical considerations a t different frequencies and a t different receiving locations.
may dictate one type of system over another. Theshort-termvariationsare usuallyassociatedwith
Curves 4 and 5 show the ratio of the range performance the changing multipath propagation over a circuit.
of the two-filter nonlinear FSK receiver (Fig. 13) compared The long-term variations
are
associated with the
tothe nonlinear one-filter FSK receiver (Fig. 12) as a seasonal variations in temperature and moisture content
function of A F / B , and for modulation indexes of 1 and 4. of the troposphere or with the changes in the ionosphere
For A F / B , > 2, there is insignificant difference between due to seasonalordaily(night andday)variations.
the two types of receivers. The other type of disturbance experienced in a channel
is the additive type which is present in the absence of an
VII. CHANNEL CHAR.4CTERIZBTION4 input signal. Thesedisturbancesmaybenatural, or
The communication engineer is interested in character- intentionalorunintentionalman-madetype of inter-
izing a communication channel by a mathematical model. ference. Theadditivetype of disturbance thatmay
This model can then be used to determine the effects of be
described by
Gaussian-distributed noise may be
radiopropagation,antenna fluctuations, andadditive receiver noise or cosmic noise. Impulse-type noise is
interference, which may be intentional or unintentional. due t o lightning or
man-made ignitioninterference.
The simplest type of channelis the two-terminalpair Intentional or . nonintentionalinterferencefrom other
which has an input into which signals are sent and an man-made signals is also classified asadditivetype of
output from which signals are received. There are many interference. It is necessary to understand the character-
types of channels such as ground wave systems, line of istics of the different types of interference in order to
sightsystems,systemsemploying reflection from the analyze the performance of the communicationsystem.
ionosphere, ionospheric scatter systems, meteor trail The previousanalysis of the PSK and FSK systems
reflection systems, tropospheric scatter systems, systems was on the basis of only additive Gaussian random noise.
employing scattering
from artificial satellites,
space An excellent discussion is given by Turin“ on the coherent
communications through ionized gas plasmas, etc. and noncoherent receivers for “heavy” fading, (‘moderate’’
The transmission characteristics of some of these fading, and no fading. His analysis suggests that a practical
channelshaveenormous differences. Therefore, it seems system which is to operate through both fixed and non-
questionablewhether it is possible to representthese selective fading paths will be essentially optimal if it is
different channels by a single mathematicnl model.
However, the various channels havethe following common
characteristics: I5 A. B. Glenn and G. Lieberman, “Effect of propagation fading
and antenna fluctuations on communication systems in the presence
of jamming,” Proc.Natl.AeronauticalElectronics Conf., Dayton,
I) They are usually linear. Ohio; May, 1960.
16 G. L. Turin, “E.rror probabilities for binary symmetric ideal
2) They have input(s) and output(s). reception through nonselective slow fading and noise,” PROC.IRE,
3) There are additive disturbances in the output(s). vol. 46, pp. 1603-1619; September, 1958.

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 98 T R AI N
R SEA C T I O N S ON COMMUNICATIONS
SYSTEMS June
designed to useuncorrelated signals and noncoherent
reception exclusively.
The phase comparison system does not havea knowledge
of the phase of the signal at the receiver. Therefore, in
addition t o fading, any additionalperturbation of the
phase of the signaldue toantennafluctuations(par-
ticularlyairborneantennas), or any type of man-made
interference will degrade the performance of the phase
comparison systemmorerapidly thanthe noncoherent
FSK system.
It is then important to have a knowledge of the multi- - -
To To
plicative and additive type of disturbances for a particular Fig. 16-Spectrum of PSK signal.
channel in order t o decide whether a phase comparison

-
system or a noncoherent FSK system should be used.
MA1N 2 NO Low
CARRIER -----c PRODUCT
IF 4 FILTER
VI11. PSK-AM SYSTEM AM DEMOD
PS DETECTOR
AMP
k
f
Pn

-
The signal of, a phase shift keyed amplitude modulated
(PSK-AM) wave is expressed as I ST PHASE
TUNER
- I FA M P
+ mg(t)] coswot
LOCKED
F osc
f(2) = A[1 FI'

where
m = the modulating factor,
A = the amplitude of the carrier,
wo = the main carrier angular velocity, Fig. 17-Coherent PSK-AM receiver, where
g(t) = the modulating function. E, is the open-circuited antenna voltage,
R. is the antenna radiationresistance,
F 1s the receiver noise figure
Thus, (BIF)lis the bandwidth of the first IF amplifier,
9isdetector,
the carrier-to-noise (power) ratio at the inpnt to the AM
(BIF)2is the bandwidth of the second IF amplifier,
is the output filter bandwidth (adjust for maximum SNR),
= 0 elsewhere in time; c' is the signal-to-noise ratio (power) in the second IF amplifier
-

let
e = 0 for a mark
[a]
N after filtering,

0"
is the signal-to-noise ratio (power) in the output amplifer.
t

= n for a qpace.

The frequency spectrum is The spectrum of the PSI<-AM signal in the first.and
second IF amplifiers and in the outputis shown in Fig. 18.

IX. FSK-AM SYSTEM

The compositesignalfor the FSK-AMsignal is the
same form as (52), but the modulatingfunction g ( t ) is
either a t a mark or space frequency. The spectrum of this
signal before and after demodulation is shown in Fig. 19.
A block diagramforthissystemisshown in Fig. 20.
For high carrier-to-noise ratios, there is negligible degrada-
tion of C / N bythefirst AM detection process. This
This spectrum is shown in Fig. 16 where it is seen that
detectordetermines the .minimum threshold C / N ratio
the frequency spectrum of the subcarrier PSK signal is
and is approximately 3 to 1 for both systems.
represented by a sin e / e function displaced from theorigin
by theangular velocity w1 of the subcarrier. The marka d
X. OPERATING
RANGEFOR FSK-AI4 AND
space angular velocities are alike, but the phase 8 of these
PSK-AM SYSTEMS
signals will differ. This phase difference is detected by a
phase-lock synchronousdetector. The accuracy of the The analysis of SNR which will be used for the FSIC-AM
oscillator for this detector shouldbewithin 10 degrees. receiver shown in Fig. 20 will follow along the same lines
A block diagram of a PSK-AM receiver is shown in as the analysis used for the linear FSK receiver shown in
Fig. 17. Fig. 14. The maximumfrequencydeviation of the sub-

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 1960 Glenn: Comparison of Binary Coded Transmission Systems 99
BANDPASS
~ T ; D E
carriershould
isolation ofbe
the twosufficiently
filters. large to ensurepractical

From (321, the output SNR as a function of the sub-

carrier-to-noise ratio for the receiver shown in Fig. 20 is
I
1I NOISE

I , f
(55)
fo- fI fo+ fl

where
REFERENCE
(a) /CARRIER ( C / N ) a = the subcarrier to noise ratio a t point a,
I--BI.--- (BIF)~ +
= ~ ( B I AFz),
AMPLITUDE B, = bandwidth of markspaceor filter,-
MAIN
CARRIER = 2fm',
\ fm = bandwidth of low-pass filter,
AF, = frequency instability of subcarrier.
0 f , t - f If the CNR (PJP,) before the maincarrier envelope
(b)
detector is above the threshold, then
REFERENCE

\--I
CARRIER
L O W PASS FILTER
AFTER SUBCARRIER DETECTION
P
">3 (56)

where
NOISE ( B I F )=
~ 2[2(B1 + AFJI + AF1.

'f AF, is the frequencyinstability of the main

carrier.
0 fm

(C)
i Therefore, from (55) and (56),
pig. 18-Spectral densities of PSK-AM signal and noise, (a) first IF,
(b) second IF, (e) output. (57)

Similarly, for the differentially coherent PSK-AM system,

C / N is the subcarrier-to-noiseratio, andthe CNR

--r(Bf2fmt.-- before the main
carrier envelope detector is
SPACE /I \;MAR,

pa
-_ -
- c (B1F)Z
-~ E. > 3 (59)
NOISE
Pn N (BIF)l ' Pn
0 kf.iQ
e o
, ~ , ~ ~ where
, + 0 4
~ ~ , +o I
c4'%k-LAh
(b)
~

(BIF)~
= 2(B1 f AFz) + AF1. (60)
Fig. 19-signal and noise spectral densities for an FSK-AM wave,
(a) Prior to maincarrierdetection, (b) prior to detection of Therefore,
subcarrier.

p. out Pn 2Rl (61)

(38) for the differentially

The operating range ratio from
coherentPSK-AM (DPSK-AM)andthe noncoherent
FSK-AM systems for the same P ( t ) G, ( ( ) ,A,, F , T , and
M, is, from (57) and (cil),
1/2

Fig. 20-FSK detection withtwo narrow-band filters and Ah1 t (62)

detectors. DPSK--AM

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 1.00

Since for matched filters and closely (within 0.8 db)

for optimum "ideal" type filters fmTom 1, then

Eq. (64) is identicalto (39). Since the frequency

stability of the subcarrier is such that AF2/B1<< 1, the
demodulatorcircuits for DPSK shown inFig. 11 will
be satisfactory.
A comparison of the operating rangefor the linear FSK Fig. 21-Operating range ratio vs A F I B ~ .
receiver of Fig. 14 and the FSK-AM receiver shownin
Fig. 20 is given by (65), using (35) and (57). There is a
minimum of 3 db more power in the signal for the FSK
systems than in thesignal of the FSK-AM system for the biterrorprobabilities less than one partin 1000. It
same dc power into the output stage of the transmitter. is
seen that for AF/B1 < 1, the FSK nonlinear dual
Therefore,
from (32) and (57) and for P(t)FSIi -
- filter receiver is superior to the FSK-AN linear receiver.
A linear FSK-AM receiver means that there is negligible
~P<')FSK-AMI
degradation of SNR in the detection of the main,carrier
~FSK-L -
~- - 2. (P./Pn > 3). As an example, consider that for one error
TFSK-AM in 10,000 the CNR-before the main carrier detector is,
from (57),
If the nonlinear two-filter FSK receiver shown in Fig.
131is used instead of thelinearFSK receiver, then a
comparison with the FSR-AM receiver shows the ratio
of operating range, using (42), (45), and (57), to be

- 19
AFI
4 + B ,
This shows that for AF,/B, > 4, the CNR will begin
Eqs. (64)-(66) areplottedinFig. 21 as afunction to show significant degradationinthemaincarrier
of AFIR,. Thesecurvesarepracticallyindependent of envelope detector.

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