1.

AMPLITUDE MODULATION (AM)

1. OVERVIEW

In order that a radio signal can carry audio or other information for
broadcasting or for two way radio communication, it must be modulated or
changed in some way. Although there are a number of ways in which a
radio signal may be modulated, one of the easiest is to change its
amplitude in line with variations of the sound.

In this way the amplitude of the radio

frequency signal varies in line with the
instantaneous value of the intensity of
the modulation. This means that the
radio frequency signal has a
representation of the sound wave
superimposed in it.

In view of the way the basic signal

"carries" the sound or modulation, the
radio frequency signal is often termed
the "carrier".

From the diagram, it can be seen that

the envelope of the signal follows
the contours of the modulating Pic 1 Amplitude Modulation

signal.

2. ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS

From given instructions, I could execute the file on the MATLAB and then give the existing
functions some customized parameters to test what the system would respond in case of
any change to the existing parameters. The following are what I deduced from customizing
the value of some variables, including rng, carrier signal frequency, and pulse
width.

VARIATIONS IN RNG VARIABLES.

Assuming that the nrg in the instructions are typo since the main program and
functions written are containing nrg variable in nowhere, I assume that the actual
concern is the rng variable in the first function. The change I made is highlighted in the
following script.

function am_plot(idx,m,c,u,rng)
% AM_PLOT Plots the three modulation signals
 % am_plot(m,c,u,rng)
% idx: x index (it can represent time or frequency)
% m: modulating signal
% c: carrier signal
% u: modulated signal
% rng: range of x axis to plot (optional)

if nargin < 5; rng = 1; end % default value for rng

The following script could be found in second MATLAB Function, The am_plot function.
The highlighted part showing the declaration value for the rng value. The following is the
original plot and the result after I modified the value of rng.

Pic 2 The original result of the program, no changes

are made

Pic 3 The Result with rng value

changed to 5
With our naked eye we could barely see any change on the diagrams. The rng is stand for
Random Number Generation. When Matlab generates random numbers, they're not truly
random; they are based on a pseudo-random number generating algorithm. The rng
command controls the seed, or starting point, for this value. The "default" values resets it to
the original value that MATLAB starts with; this evolves over time.

You can see this behaviour if you do something like called rand(10,1), then calling
rng('default') then repeating the rand command. It will generate exactly the same "random"
numbers.

This is generally useful for situations where you want to repeat an (ex ante) random outcome.
For instance, in Monte Carlo simulation or in simulation-based optimization procedures.

But if the questions asked about the nargin variable, then the result would be totally different.
The following is the change that happened to the diagram if I change the value of nargin to 8.

The diagram that showing the carrier frequency

is affected. The diagram seems to be narrower
and smaller. However, If we zoom small enough,
the frequency itself is not changing, just the
scale of the object is decreasing.

VARIATIONS IN CARRIER FREQUENCY

This variation is customizing fc variable in the third program, the one that I named
am_calculation. The original value is 20, I varied it with 10 and 30 to portray the smaller
Pic 4 The
and bigger number Result of Program,
respectively. with rngisvalue
The following changed to 5
the result.

Pic 5 The AM wave with carrier frequency

= 10
The result are two waves that differ in both frequency and the period of course, the one with
carrier frequency of 30 is seems
Pic to be narrower
6 The thancarrier
AM Wave with one with carrier frequency of 10. Also the
left diagram show us the frequency
frequencyof =it’s
30 respective wave. The upper segment, we can see
the information that signal carries, the second is the waveform the carrier signal made, and
the bottom segment with the result of both upper and middle multiplication. All of them with
it’s respective frequency detected.

VARIATIONS IN THE PULSE WIDTH

This step, we add a modification of the am_plot function

% Now make the second message signal
pw = 0.1; % pulse width
m = rectpuls(t,pw);
% Now make a new carrier
fc = 60; % carrier frequency
c = cos(2*pi*fc*t);
% Modulate the signal
u = m.*c;
The variable pulse width (pw) is now declared with the value of 0,1. Now the diagram is looked
like this
 Pic 7 The AM wave with pw =
0.1
The middle segment, the carrier signal is going to be a lot narrower as it value is increasing to
60 as expected. The top section, is the information bit of the signal, now represented as a step
signal with a pulse width of 0.1 second. The convolution of both middle and top wave is
represented on the bottom segment. A brief wave consist of carrier-like-shaped signal with the
information bit as it’s “border”

Then, as instructed, I changed the value of pw to 0.01, 0,2. 0,5 and 0,75. The result can be
seen on these following set of diagrams.

Pic 8 AM Wave with pw =

0.01
 Pic 9 AM Wave with pw =
0.2

Pic 10 AM Wave with pw =

0.5

Pic 11 AM Wave with pw =

0,75
From this set of diagram we can observe that each time the value of pw is increasing, it also
increasing the size of the information bit of the signal. As the information signal is pure step,
then the convolution happened on the section that include the value of 1 in the information bit
is neatly “cropped” the carrier signal.

We can also observe that in the frequency diagram, there is two peaks that always happened
in both negative and positive side of the diagram, This is called upper sideband (from the
positive side) and lower sideband (from the negative side).

FILTER TO DEMODUL ATE SIGNAL WITH SPECIFIC PW AND FC

If we apply the value of pw = 0,05 and fc= 15 and plot the result on the matlab, the result is
shown at Pic 12.

Pic 12 AM wave with pw = 0.05 and fc

= 15