An Introduction to Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK)

ECE-486 Lab 6 April 13, 2009

Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK)

Let m(t) be a polar binary waveform, which is used to convey a random binary sequence. In this case, m(t) takes a value of +1 to indicate a logical 1, and 1 to indicate a logical 0. The value of m(t) changes every Tb seconds to indicate the next bit of the sequence, where Tb is the bit period. Figure 1 shows a typical waveform. A binary phase-shift keyed (BPSK) signal is obtained by multiplying m(t) by a sinusoidal carrier signal at frequency fc . s(t) = Am(t) cos(2fc t) (1)

Figure 2 illustrates the modulated signal s(t) based on the binary waveform shown in Figure 1. The information is encoded into the phase of the transmitted signal, with a 180 deg phase shift indicating a logical 0. Encoding the binary information on a high frequency carrier accomplishes several goals. Depending on the selection of the carrier frequency fc , the signal s(t) may be radiated, either acoustically or electrically. By selecting different carrier frequencies for each signal, multiple data streams may use the same physical media without interfering with each other. The bandwidth of the BPSK signal illustrated here is approximately B = 2/Tb .

Demodulation of BPSK

The optimal BPSK demodulator is illustrated in Figure 3. This system gives the lowest possible probability of error under lots of (often reasonable) assumptions. The received signal is assumed to be the sum of a modulated signal with white Gaussian noise corruption n(t). The receiver operates by multiplying the incoming (corrupted) signal by a locally generated carrier reference. The carrier reference must be derived from the received signal, and is (ideally) a cosine at the exact phase and frequency as the carrier for the received s(t): c(t) = cos(2fc t) (2)

m(t) 0 +1 0 1 0 0 1 0

Binary Data 1 0

t 1
Tb

Figure 1: Polar binary waveform for the bit sequence 0100101.

s(t) 0 A 0 1 0 0 1

Binary Data 0 1 0

t A
Tb

Figure 2: BPSK waveform s(t) for the bit sequence 0100101.

Sample at the end of each bit period s(t) + n(t) Tb sec Integrator c(t) Carrier Reference
Figure 3: BPSK Demodulator. In this case, the integrator input includes a copy of m(t). (s(t) + n(t)) cos(2fc t) = Am(t) cos2 (2fc t) + noise = (3)

> 0?

Binary Output

(A/2)m(t) + (A/2)m(t) cos(4fc t) + noise. (4)

The integrator provides some additional noise immunity and removes the double-frequency term, essentially averaging the signal over each bit period. It may be constructed as an FIR lter with impulse response h(t) = 2/Tb 0 0 < t < Tb elsewhere (5)

At the end of each bit period, the integrator output is sampled, providing single value (denoted Y in Figure 3). This value has an average value of +A for a transmitted 1, and A for a transmitted zero. The sign of Y is used to determine the demodulator binary output.

Non-coherent Detection

The demodulator illustrated in Figure 3 is called a coherent detector, since it requires the generation of a carrier reference c(t) at the exact frequency and phase of the carrier for incoming signal s(t). For many applications generation of c(t) is difcult or impossible. For frequency hopped systems, the carrier frequency may be changing with time, making it difcult to maintain an accurate phase-lock at the receiver. Some systems only transmit short bursts of information (eg. a temperature sensor output, or an ID number for an RFID tag). In these cases the transient incurred at the beginning of the transmission to allow the receiver to lock to the carrier may be unacceptable. So designers often search for noncoherent receivers which do not require a coherent carrier reference. 3

s(t) + n(t)

Lowpass Filter exp(j2 f 0 t)

(a) Complex Form.

s(t) + n(t)

Lowpass Filter cos(2 f t)

0

YR

Lowpass Filter sin(2 f t)

0
(b) Real Implementation.

YI

Figure 4: A generic complex receiver front-end for bandpass signals s(t). For amplitude-modulated systems, the noncoherent receivers are fairly obvious: Detection is based on the envelope of the transmitted signal, and the phase is ignored. Designing a non-coherent system for phase modulation is a little more subtle. Some insight comes from looking at the output of the generic complex receiver front-end shown in Figure 4. This common receiver structure may be used to examine any bandpass signal with center frequency near f0 . It is very common in digital receiver implementations, since the sample rates required to represent the system output are relatively low compared to that required for s(t). The system outputs YR and YI may be understood as the real and imaginary parts of the phasor representation of s(t), using a reference frequency f0 . The output of the complex receiver front-end for a phase-shift keyed signal changes depending upon the relationship between f0 and the carrier frequency fc . Figure 5 illustrates four possible cases. If fc = f0 , and theres no phase offset (coherent case), then the cosine (real) channel of the front-end is essentially the optimum demodulator shown in Figure 3. YR takes values of A, depending on the transmitted bit, and YI depends only on the noise. The demodulator binary output may be determined from the sign of YR . A constant phase error (still with f0 = fc ) results in a rotation output constellation by radians. A more complicated test involving both YR and YI is needed to determine the binary sequence. Similarly, if fc = f0 , the phase error becomes a func4

YI

YI

"1"

"0"

"1" YR "0" YR

No Frequency or Phase Offset

Constant Phase Offset

"0"

YI

Increasing time

YI

Increasing time

"0" YR "1" YR

"1" Carrier Frequency above f 0 Carrier Frequency below f 0

Figure 5: Complex receiver outputs for a phase-shift keyed input signal. The received signal will transition between the 0 and 1 points as determined by the transmitted data sequence.

s(t) 0 0 1 0 0 1

Binary Data 0 1 0 Phase Changes

t A
Tb

Figure 6: DPSK waveform s(t) for the bit sequence 0100101. tion of time: (t) = 2 (fc f0 )t. The result is a rotating constellation. For example, a 5 Hz offset between f0 and fc will result in a constellation which completes exactly ve rotations per second. A coherent receiver must ether generate the phase-locked signal as implied in Figure 3, or it must track the phase error shown in Figure 5 and constantly modify its rule for determining the binary output bit. A noncoherent alternative is possible if the rotation of the signal constellation is small over a 2Tb second period. The key is that, while it may be difcult to determine whether a given (YR , YI ) pair corresponds to a 0 or a 1, its relatively easy to determine the (YR , YI ) pair is the same or different from that of the previous bit. This is the idea behind Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK): The information (at the transmitter) is indicated by phase changes in the transmitted signal. For example, a transmitted 1 may be indicated by no change in the transmitted signal, while a 0 is indicated by inverting the carrier (relative to the previous bit). This process is known as Differential Encoding. The receiver must decide on its binary output based on whether the received (YR , YI ) pair is the same as that of the previous bit period, or if the sign has been changed. Some authors describe this system as a partially coherent system, since coherence over a short (2Tb second) period of time is still required. Figure 6 illustrated a DPSK signal for the binary sequence 0100101.

s(t) + n(t)

Integrator exp(j2 f t) 0 (| |)
1

Tb sec

Y(t)

x(t) Tb sec Delay

w(t)

Re( )

1 A(t)

Conjg

Figure 7: DPSK demodulator block diagram. The sign of the demodulator output (measured at the end of each bit period) provides the binary output bit.

DPSK Demodulator
Y (t) = A(t) exp(j(t)) (6)

The complex receiver front-end output Y (t) has magnitude A(t) and phase (t)

The DPSK demodulator must compare the phase (measured over one bit period) to the phase measured over the previous bit period. To accomplish this, the signal Y (t) is rst normalized (divided by its magnitude A(t)). x(t) = Y (t)/A(t) = ej(t) (7)

A measure of the phase difference with the previous bit-period is obtained by multiplying this by its conjugate from the previous bit period. w(t) = x(t)x (t Tb ) = exp(j ((t) (t Tb ))) (8)

If the rotation of the signal constellation is small over the 2Tb second period of time, the imaginary part of this result should be small. The real part provides the indication of the transmitted bit, taking a value near +1 if there was no phase transition, and -1 if there was a radian phase shift. Figure 7 shows a block diagram of the demodulator.