Pulse Modulation 1

Pulse Modulation In Communication System

Abstract: This paper writing will present about pulse modulation, which is widely used in communication
system. Pulse modulation is the heart of technology in communications in today’s digital world. It’s a
process in which analog signals are converted to digital form. The analog signal is represented by a series
of pulses and non-pulses (1 or 0 respectively). The stream of pulses and non-pulse streams of 1’s and 0’s
are not easily affected by interference and noise. Even in the presence of noise, the presence or absence of a
pulse can be easily determined. The methodologies that we use to complete this paper are finding the
content from reference books, Internet sources and lecturer. As the result, the technique for pulse
modulation included three processes, which are sampling, quantization and coding.

1.0 Introduction
Pulse modulation includes many
different methods of converting information into
pulse form for transferring pulses from a source
to a destination. The four dominant methods are:
1. Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)
2. Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
3. Pulse Position Modulation (PAM)
4. Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
GMB for aquatic studies is the most widely used
instrument in this field at the present time and
works well. Using the PAM instrument one can
measure the maximum (optimal), dark-adapted
quantum yield, a measure of whether PS II is
working unconstrained –or is working under
some kind of stress.

2.0 Content

2.1 Pulse Amplitude Modulation

Pulse-amplitude modulation, also called
PAM, is a form of signal modulation where the
signal is encoded in the amplitude of a series of
signal pulses. Example: A two-bit modulator
(PAM-4) will take two bits at a time and will
map the signal amplitude to one of four possible
levels, for example −2 volts, −1 volt, 1 volt, and
2 volts. It is widely used in base band
transmission of digital data

Figure 2: A Diving PAM Fluorometer

Furthermore, the effective quantum

Figure 1: PAM waveform
2.1.1 Application: Fluorometer Diving-PAM
The fluorometer uses a range of
flashing (pulsed) lights to measure the
photosynthesis. These pulses of light are
modulated, and the height (or amplitude) of the
pulse of light governs its intensity.
The Diving-PAM is developed by R
Gademann and U. Schreiber and made by Walz
yield can be measured to an absolute rate of
photosynthetic electron transport. In effect this
yields the rate of photosynthesis, arguably the
most sought after parameter in all algae and plant
studies. Moreover, it is a measurement that can
be achieved in seconds. Compare this with the
time of minutes to hours needed to measure
photosynthesis by oxygen evolution or carbon
dioxide fixation methods. PAM fluorometer has
proven exceptionally good at measuring non-
photochemical quenching, that is the measure of
the amount of light that is deliberately diverted
into heat by a photosynthetic organism, most
notably by the xanthophylls cycle.
PAM fluorometer is suitable in
determining photosynthetic rates of sea-grasses
Pulse Modulation 2
both in the laboratory and in situ. The Diving-
PAM further allows for such measurements to be
done underwater to depths of 50m. Because
PAM fluorometry measures only photon-
driven electron transport (which gives rise to
O2 evolution, but also to photo respiration and
other possible consuming reactions involving
electron flow through PSII), it cannot be applied
by itself if energy or gas exchange budgets
are to be determined since these depend also
on diurnal rates of dark respiration.
2.2 Pulse Width Modulation
This method is sometimes called pulse
duration modulation (PPM) or pulse length
modulation (PLM). Pulse width modulation
(PWM) is an active portion of the duty cycle,
which is proportional to the amplitude of the
analog signal. PWM uses pulse that all have
same amplitude. The width of each pulse in a
train is made proportional to the instantaneous
value of the modulating signal at the instant of
the pulse. The duration of each pulse depends on
the amplitude of the signals at the time it is
sampled. Pulses of various lengths, which are the
information signal itself, will be sent at regular
intervals at the carrier frequency of the
modulation.
Figure 3: Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
2.2.1 Application: DC motor speed control
PWM is used to vary the total amount
of powered delivered to a load without resistive
waste. An RC filter can be used to smooth the
pulse train into a steady analog voltage. This
method is commonly used in DC motor speed
control. A pulse width modulator (PWM) is a
device that may be used as an efficient light
dimmer or DC motor speed controller. The
circuit described here is for a general purpose
device that can control DC devices which draw
up to a few amps of current. The circuit may be
used in either 12 or 24 Volt systems with only a
few minor wiring changes. This device has been
used to control the brightness of an automotive
tail lamp and as a motor speed control for small
DC fans of the type used in computer power
supplies.
A PWM circuit works by making a
square wave with a variable on-to-off ratio, the
average on time may be varied from 0 to 100
percent. In this manner, a variable amount of
power is transferred to the load. The main
advantage of a PWM circuit over a resistive
power controller is the efficiency, at a 50% level,
the PWM will use about 50% of full power,
almost all of which is transferred to the load, a
resistive controller at 50% load power would
consume about 71% of full power, 50% of the
power goes to the load and the other 21% is
wasted heating the series resistor. Load
efficiency is almost always a critical factor in
solar powered and other alternative energy
systems.
One additional advantage of pulse width
modulation is that the pulses reach the full
supply voltage and will produce more torque in a
motor by being able to overcome the internal
motor resistances more easily. Finally, in a
PWM circuit, common small potentiometers may
be used to control a wide variety of loads
whereas large and expensive high power variable
resistors are needed for resistive controllers.
Figure 4: PWM Motor Speed Controller Circuit
The main disadvantages of PWM
circuits are the added complexity and the
possibility of generating radio frequency
interference (RFI). RFI may be minimized by
locating the controller near the load, using short
leads, and in some cases, using additional
filtering on the power supply leads. This circuit
has some RFI bypassing and produced minimal
interference with an AM radio that was located
under a foot away. If additional filtering is
needed, a car radio line choke may be placed in
series with the DC power input, be sure not to
exceed the current rating of the choke. The
majority of the RFI will come from the high
current path involving the power source, the
load, and the switching FET, Q1.
Pulse Modulation 3
Other than that, PWM also has its
communications uses; for instance it is often
used in the high powered audio amplifiers used
to modulate AM transmitter. It also used for
telemetry systems. Though still an analog mode,
it is more robust than PAM because it is
insensitive to amplitude changes due to noise
and distortion. Like PAM, PWM also can be
demodulated using low pass filter.
2.3 Pulse Position Modulation
Pulse position modulation (PPM) is
another type of pulse modulation and it is a time
domain method. In general, PPM is defined as
the position of individual pulse is varied
accordance to the instantaneous amplitude of the
modulating signal within a prescribed time while
its amplitude and width is kept constant. A
synchronizing pulse is sent out from transmitter
to operate the time circuits in the receiver and
receiver will be properly synchronized to
align the local clock with the beginning of each
symbol. Thus, receiver would able to measure
the difference in the arrival time of pulses and
received signals more accurately as well as
minimize the error.
PPM has the advantages of requiring
constant transmitter power, more immune to
noise interference since amplitude of modulating
signal is held constant and electronic circuits
used to decode signals are very simple which
lead to low weight modulation devices.
Disadvantages of PPM include complex
design of transmitter and receiver due to
synchronization consideration. Figure 1 shows
the PPM waveforms.
2.3.1 Application: Narrowband Radio
Frequency (RF)
PPM may be used to transmit analog
information such as continuous speech or data.
PPM is primarily useful for optical
communication system due to its advantages of
little or no multipart interference. PPM is usually
applied in narrowband radio frequency (RF)
channels with low power and long wavelengths.
This modulation technique is normally
found widely application in the radio control of
model aircraft, boats and cars. A complete radio
control system would consist of transmitter,
receiver, servo, and battery. Servo is used to
convert the pulse signal to the desired angular
motor position. PPM is applied to these systems
with position of each pulse representing the
angular position of an analogue control signal
from the transmitter. The number of pulses per
frame will determine the number of controllable
channels available as shown in figure 2. The gap
between each pulse is different depending on the
amplitude of modulating signals. There is a
synchronization period between the sample
frames and it is determined by encoding each
frame position relative to the previous frame.
Receiver will recognize the arrival time of each
frame and then avoiding of signal collisions.
The position of channel 1 is varying
according to the amplitude of modulating signal.
It is read and a pulse will be generated to be sent
out towards receiver. At the same time, the
process of reading position of channel 2 begins
and this repeats very fast for all channels. Then,
receiver will recognize number of pulse or
channel with different gap times and receiver
will recognize it and it will determine which
servo they heading to. The first pulse will be sent
to servo 1, and then second pulse will be sent to
servo 2 and so on.
Electronic devices used to decode the
signal are very simple and thus lead to a small
and light in weight decoder. This is extremely
suitable to be applied in modern aircraft since
weight is an important issue for the aircraft.
Figure 5: PPM Waveforms
Figure 6: Six channel of PPM signal
2.4 Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
The practical implementation of PCM
makes use of other processes, which are
sampling, quantization and coding process.
Sampling of a waveform means determining
Pulse Modulation 4
instantaneous amplitudes of a signal at fixed
intervals. While for quantization is a process of
allocating levels to the infinite range of
amplitudes of sample values of the analog signal.
Encoding process is the process of each step
level is assigned a number. The numbers start
with zero at the lowest level. These assigned
numbers are then expressed in binary form (in
terms of 0’s and 1’s). This will be the last part of
the conversion and the PCM signal will be
transmitted or sent.
The principal advantage of Pulse Code
Modulation (PCM) is the noise immunity. One
disadvantage of PCM is that the signal accuracy
is reduced because of the quantizing of the
samples.
Regarding the increased bandwidth
requirements by PCM the problems is no longer
a serious one because of the advent of large
bandwidth fiber optic systems. PCM also finds
use in space communications. Way back in 1965
mariners to transmit back pictures of Mars used
PCM.
The figure 7 below shows the process
that happen in Pulse Code Modulation (PCM).
Vm(t)
SAMPLING
QUANTIZATION
CODING
VPCM(t)
2.4.1 Application: Optimal Pulse Code
Modulation (Opcm) and7 Its Application as an
Figure
Audio Quality Parameter.
The introduction of digital audio
(Compact Disc) has boosted the audio quality
compared to the old analog media. Since then,
the term "digital" has become a synonym of
quality. This quality is bought at the price of an
enormous amount of data - over 700'000 bits per
second (700 kbps) are necessary for encoding a
mono signal. If we reduce this data rate, the
sound quality suffers - because we simply throw
away some information. But this reduction is
needed for low bandwidth channels as a
telephone line, the internet or terrestic
broadcasts.
Standard digital sound is stored as PCM
data (pulse code modulation). The audio signal is
measured at a fixed rate ("sampling rate") with a
given precision ("resolution"). On a CD, each
stereo channel is measured 44'100 times a
second with a precision of 16 bits, resulting in
705'600 bits per second. Decreasing this rate can
be achieved by lowering the sampling rate or the
resolution. But the best idea is to lower both
values. Of course, there is a best compromise
between reducing the sampling rate and the
resolution. These best combinations are called
"optimal PCM" (oPCM).
But there are much more intelligent
ways in decreasing the data rate with fewer
audible quality losses. Special audio formats
"codecs" were introduced such as: ADPCM
(adaptive differential pulse code modulation),
MPEG audio ("layer I, II, III") or RealAudio.
Evaluating audio compression is
complicated because there is no objective quality
parameter. This is why the comparison with
uncompressed raw data (PCM files) is
introduced. The maximum quality that a PCM
file can deliver at a given bit rate is determined
first. Since there are two parameters that define a
PCM file (sampling rate and resolution) the best
combination of these two values has to be
worked out. This is how optimal PCM (oPCM)
streams are defined: They are the best
compromise between sampling rate and
resolution at a fixed bit rate. oPCM files depend
on a single parameter, the perceptional quality
parameter, Q.
Sound data compression consists of two
steps, which are compression with audible
quality loss and compression without audible
quality loss ("net compression").
oPCM files can only compress the
sound data with quality loss (presumed that the
raw data is also oPCM*). They do not offer any
net compression. By this means it is possible to
evaluate the important net compression of a
given codec candidate. oPCM files serve
therefore as reference files.
For example, Real Audio 3.0 sounds at
40 kbps ("ISDN mono") roughly like oPCM at
96 kbps (Q=6.6). This means a net compression
ratio of 1:2.4 (Q gain = +1.3). However, most of
the total compression is loss.
There is one technical obstacle when
generating oPCM files: Standard sound devices
do not allow "odd" sampling rates and
resolutions. Therefore, we have simulated the
oPCM quality by up sampling to a higher rate
and resolution.
Pulse Modulation 5
2.4.2 The oPCM Evaluation Method
Compared to the Old ISO Methods
Sound quality evaluation is not a new
topic. Until now, audio quality tests were
performed as follows: The "expert listener" was
presented with a CD quality file and a test file.
Then, the listener had to rate the test item with
school notes ranging from 5.0 ("no difference to
CD") to 1.0 ("extremely annoying distortions").
The shortcomings of this method (used
by ISO) are obvious: The rating is rather
subjective and the only reference item is the
perfect CD quality. That is why the listener only
knows what the rating "5.0" means. The lower
ratings are strongly a matter of taste because they
are not strictly defined. As a consequence, the
results vary from listener to listener.
The oPCM method overcomes these
problems: The listener knows exactly what a
rating of e.g. Q=6.7 means: The test item sounds
better than the Q=6.6 oPCM reference file, but
worse than the Q=6.8 oPCM file.
Figure 8: Audio codec quality comparison chart
3.0 Conclusion
Although humans are well equipped for
analog communications, analog transmission is
not particularly efficient. When analog signals
become weak because of transmission loss, it is
hard to separate the complex analog structure
from the structure of random transmission noise.
If you amplify analog signals, it also amplifies
noise, and eventually analog connections become
too noisy to use. Digital signals, having only
"one-bit" and "zero-bit" states, are more easily
separated from noise. They can be amplified
without corruption. Digital coding is more
immune to noise corruption on long-distance
connections.
Acknowledgement
Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi
Wabarakatuh, With Grace and Blessing from
Allah, we have succeeded in completed our
Paper Writing Assignment for SEE 3533 Session
2007/2008 (02) with successful although we
have gone through many obstacles and
challenges. As we all know, this Paper Writing
Assignment is one of the conditions for Principle
Communication subject that we had taken for
this semester.
We would like to thank all the people
who have participate in finishing and completing
this project. Especially to PM Abu Samah B.
Mohd Supaat our Principle Communication
lecturer who have coaching us with advice and
guidance in completing this Paper Writing
Assignment.
Finally, we hope this Paper Writing
Assignment that have we completed will perform
perfectly so that we can add our marks in the
assessment of this Principle Communication
subject.
Insyaalah. Thank you.
References
1. Roy Blake, “Electronic Communication
Systems”, 2nd Ed, pg. 290-292, 2002.
2. 16kbps.wav (Date: 22.03.08)
3. http://en-wikipedia.org/wiki/pulse-
code_modulation (Date: 21.03.08)
4. http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/epd/p/id
/5165 (21-03-08)
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-
position_modulation (21-03-08)
6. http://www.pabr.org/pxarc/doc/pxarc.en
.html (21-03-08)
7. http://www.elektronik-kompendium.
de/sites/kom/0401121.htm (22-03-08)