AMPLITUDE

MODULATION
Unit -1
Semester :5th
Department:electronics and Instrumentation

Reference books:

12/21/15

Communication systems- Taub Schiling

Communication systems Sanjay sharma

Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

INTRODUCTION

Amplitude Modulation is the simplest and

earliest form of transmitters
AM applications include broadcasting in
medium- and high-frequency applications, CB
radio, and aircraft communications

12/21/15

Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

Amplitude Modulation

Amplitude Modulation is a process

where the amplitude of a carrier
signal is altered according to
information in a message signal.
The frequency of the carrier signal
is usually much greater than the
highest frequency of the input
message signal.
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Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

AM Basic Definitions
5

The AM signal
s t Ac 1 k m t cos c t

0
-5

0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09

0.1

0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09

0.1

0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09

0.1

The modulating
signal:
m t
The Carrier Signal:
c t Ac cos ct

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0
-1
1
0
-1

Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

AM Basic Definitions(cont.)
The information
signal varies the
instantaneous
amplitude of the
carrier

12/21/15

Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

AM Basic Definitions(cont.)
The Envelope:
s t Ac 1 k m t

5
4
3
2
1

The AM Signal

0
-1

s t Ac 1 k m t cos ct

-2
-3
-4
-5

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0.02 0.04

0.06 0.08

Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

0.1

0.12 0.14

0.16 0.18

0.2
6

AMPLITUDE SENSITIVITY
Modulation Index - The ratio
between the amplitudes
between the amplitudes of the
modulating signal and carrier,
expressed by the equation:

Em
m=
Ec
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Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

AM Percentage Modulation

Under modulated
(<100%)

100%
modulated

Envelope
Detector
Can be used
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Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

Over Modulated
(>100%)

Envelope
Detector
Gives Distorted
signal

NEED OF THE MODULATION

PROCESS

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To reduce the height of the

antenna
To avoid mixing signals
To increase the range of
communication
To improve quality of reception
Lastly to increase over all
strength
Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

Bandwidth
Signal bandwidth is an important
characteristic of any modulation
scheme
In general, a narrow bandwidth is
desirable
Bandwidth is calculated by:

B 2 Fm

12/21/15

Archana tiwari session 2015-2016

10

Power Relationships
Power in a transmitter is
important, but the most
important power
measurement is that of
the portion that transmits
the information
Pt
AM carriers remain
unchanged with
modulation and therefore
are wasteful
Power in an AM
transmitter is calculated
according to the formula
at the right Archana tiwari session 2015-2016
12/21/15

Pc

m2

1
2

11

Modulation Index of AM Signal

12

Double-Sideband Suppressed-Carrier AM

A double-sideband, suppressed-carrier (DSB-SC) AM signal

is obtained by multiplying the message signal m(t) with
the carrier signal c(t) = Accos(2fct)

Amplitude-modulated signal

u (t ) m(t )c(t ) Ac m(t ) cos(2 f c t )

An example of the message signal m(t), the carrier c(t), and the
modulated signal u (t) are shown in Figure 3.1
This figure shows that a relatively slowly varying message signal
m(t) is changed into a rapidly varying modulated signal u(t), and
due to its rapid changes with time, it contains higher frequency
components
At the same time, the modulated signal retains the main
characteristics of the message signal; therefore, it can be used to
retrieve the message signal at the receiver

13

Double-Sideband Suppressed-Carrier
AM

Figure 3.1 An example of message, carrier, and DSB-SC

modulated signals

14

Single-Sideband AM
The two sidebands of an AM signal are mirror images of one
another
As a result, one of the sidebands is redundant
Using single-sideband suppressed-carrier transmission results
in reduced bandwidth and therefore twice as many signals may
be transmitted in the same spectrum allotment
Typically, a 3dB improvement in signal-to-noise ratio is
achieved as a result of SSBSC

Single-Sideband AM

A method, illustrated in

Figure 3.16, generates a

DSB-SC AM signal and then
employs a filter that selects
either the upper sideband
or the lower sideband of
the double-sideband AM
signal

.,

Figure 3.16 Generation of a singlesideband AM signal by filtering one of

the sidebands of a DSB-SC AM signal.

16

Sideband and carrier power

Carrier term does not carry
information, and hence the carrier
AM (t ) A cos c t m(t ) cos c t carrier sidebands
power is wasted
Pc
A cos c t
A2 / 2
The carrier power
Ps
m(t )of
cos c t
value

is the mean sq.

m 2 (t ) / 2

which is
The sideband power
is the mean
sq. value
of
which is

Power Efficiency
The power efficiency
2

Ps
m (t )

2
100%
2
Pc Ps A m (t )

For the special case of tone

2
2
m (t ) A / 2
m(t ) A cos mt
modulation

Ps
A / 2
2

2
100%
100%
2
2
Pc Ps A A / 2
2
Hence
2

1, max 33%

Single-Sideband AM
A DSB-SC AM signal transmits two sidebands and
required a channel bandwidth of Bc = 2W Hz
However, the two sidebands are redundant

The transmission of either sideband is sufficient to

reconstruct the message signal m(t) at the
receiver
Thus, we reduce the bandwidth of the transmitted
signal from 2W to W
In the appendix 3A, a single-sideband (SSB) AM
signal is represented mathematically as
u (t ) Ac m(t ) cos(2 f c t ) Ac m (t ) sin( 2 f c t )
where
m(t ) is the Hilbert transform of m(t)
The plus sign indicates the lower sideband and the
minus sign indicates the upper sideband

19

Single-Sideband AM
The SSB-AM signal u(t) may be
generated by using the system
configuration as shown in right.
(Generation of a lower SSB-AM)

Another method (filter

method) generates a DSB AM
signal and then employs a filter
that selects either the upper
sideband or the lower sideband
of the DSB AM.
20

Demodulation of SSB-AM
Signals

To recover the message signal m(t) in the received SSB-AM signal,

we require a phase-coherent or synchronous demodulator
For the USSB signal

r (t ) cos(2 f c t ) u (t ) cos(2 f c t )
By passing the
signal 1in above
equation through an

12 Aproduct
c m(t ) cos( ) 2 Ac m(t ) sin( ) double freq. terms.
lowpass filter, the double-frequency components are eliminated.
Then

yl (t ) 12 Ac m(t ) cos( ) 12 Ac m (t ) sin( )

Note that the phase offset not only reduces the amplitude of the
desired signal m(t) by cos, but it also results in an undesirable
sideband signal due to the presence of
in yl(t)

present
(t )
The latter term was notm
in the demodulation of a DSBSC
signal
It contributes to the distortion of the demodulated SSB signal

21

Demodulation of SSB-AM
Signals

The transmission of a pilot tone at the carrier

frequency is a very effective for providing a
phase-coherent reference signal
However, a portion of the transmitted power must
be allocated to the transmission of the carrier
The spectral efficiency of SSB AM is very
attractive in voice communications over
telephone channels
Filter method, which selects one of the two
signal sidebands for transmission, is difficult to
implement when the message signal m(t) has a
large power concentrated around f = 0
In such a case, the sideband filter must have an
extremely sharp cutoff around the carrier in order
to reject the sideband
22
Such filter characteristics are very difficult to

Vestigial-Sideband AM
The stringent-frequency response requirements
on the sideband filter in an SSB-AM system can
be relaxed by allowing vestige, which is a portion
of the unwanted sideband, to appear at the
output of the modulator
Thus, we simplify the design of the sideband
filter at the cost of a small increase in the
channel bandwidth required to transmit the
signal
The resulting signal is called vestigial-sideband
(VSB) AM
This type of modulation is appropriate for signals that
have a strong low-frequency component, such as video
23
signals

Vestigial-Sideband AM
To generate a VSB-AM signal, we generate a DSBSC AM signal and pass it through a sideband filter
with the frequency response H( f ), as shown in
below
In the u
(t ) domain,
[ Ac m(t ) cos
f c t ] signal
h(t ) may be
time
the2VSB
expressed as

where h(t) is the

Ac impulse response of the VSB filter
U ( f ) M n ( f f c ) M n ( f f c ) H ( f )
2 domain, the corresponding
In the frequency

expression is
(eq. 1)

Generation of vestigial-sideband AM signal.

24

Vestigial-Sideband AM
To determine the frequency-response
characteristics of the filter, we will consider the
demodulation of the VSB signal u(t).
We multiply u(t) by the carrier component cos2fct
and pass the result through an ideal lowpass filter,
1
as vshown
in
below.
V ( f ) U ( f f c ) U ( f f c )
(t ) u (t ) cos 2 f t
c

Thus, the product signal is

(t )

or

Demodulation of VSB signal.

25

Vestigial-Sideband AM
If we substitute U( f ) from eq. (1) into V(f) , we
obtainAc
Ac
V( f )

M ( f 2 f c ) M ( f ) H ( f f c )

M ( f ) M ( f 2 f c ) H ( f f c )

The lowpass filter rejects the double-frequency

terms and passes only the components in the
frequency range
| f|W
Ac
M ( f ) H ( f f c ) H ( f f c )
l( f )
Hence,Vthe
signal
spectrum at the output of the
4
ideal lowpass filter is
The message signal at the output of the lowpass
filter H
must
( f be
f ) undistorted
H ( f f ) constant | f | W
c

Hence, the VSB-filter characteristic must satisfy the

condition

26

Vestigial-Sideband AM

VSB-filter characteristics.

We note that H(f) selects the upper sideband and a

vestige of the lower sideband
It has odd symmetry about the carrier frequency fc
in the frequency range fc - fa < f < fc + fa, where fa is
a conveniently selected frequency that is some
small fraction of W, i.e., fa << W
27
Thus, we obtain an undistorted version of the

Vestigial-Sideband AM
The frequency response of a VSB filter that
selects the lower sideband and a vestige of the
upper sideband is shown in below
In practice, the VSB filter is designed to have
some specified phase characteristic
To avoid distortion of the message signal, VSB
filter should have a linear phase over its
of the VSB filter for selecting
passband fc - fa | f | Frequency
fc + response
W
the lower sideband of the message signals.

28

Advantages/disadvantages
Advantages of Amplitude Modulation, AM
There are several advantages of amplitude modulation, and some of these
reasons have meant that it is still in widespread use today:
It is simple to implement
it can be demodulated using a circuit consisting of very few components
AM receivers are very cheap as no specialized components are needed.

Disadvantages of amplitude modulation

Amplitude modulation is a very basic form of modulation, and although its
simplicity is one of its major advantages, other more sophisticated systems
provide a number of advantages. Accordingly it is worth looking at some of
the disadvantages of amplitude modulation.
It is not efficient in terms of its power usage
It is not efficient in terms of its use of bandwidth, requiring a bandwidth
equal to twice that of the highest audio frequency
It is prone to high levels of noise because most noise is amplitude based
and obviously AM detectors are sensitive to it.