EE 499: Wireless & Mobile Communications (082)

Dr. Wajih A. Abu-Al-Saud

Lecture13:ModulationTechniquesforMobileRadio DigitalModulationTechniques
Analog vs. Digital Modulation
Duetothefollowingmanyadvantagesofdigitalcommunicationsoveranalogcommunications,modern cellularphonesusedigitalmodulationratherthananalogmodulation: 1. Digitalcommunicationsprovidesecuredcommunications, 2. Advancement in design and manufacturing of digital integrated circuits and digital signal processors (DSP) made digital communications cheaper than analog communications. These advancements made it possible to implement digital modulation techniques completely in software rather than in hardware (this allows the possibility of updates to modulation algorithmswithouttheneedforhardwareredesignandreplacements) 3. Digitalcommunicationsprovidehigherimmunitytonoiseandchanneleffectsthroughtheuseof repeaters, 4. Digitalcommunicationsprovideeasiermultiplexingofvarioustypesofsignalstogethersuchas audio,video,anddata 5. Digitalcommunicationsallowtheuseoferrorcorrectiontocontroltheprobabilityoferror

Digital Modulation
Indigitalcommunications,thedigitalinformationsignalisrepresentedbyasequenceofsymbols.The symbolsmaytakeanyvalueofasomepowerof2numberofpossibilitiesequalto m (forexample,one of2,4,8,16,32,64,or128possibilities).Inthiscase,eachsymbolcarriesanumberofbitsequalto n thatisrelatedto m by

n = log 2 m

Forthepreviousvaluesof m possibilities,thecorrespondingnumberofbitsis1,2,3,4,5,6,or7bits. Thepurposeofthedemodulatorpartofthecommunicationsystemistodetectwhichofthe m symbols wastransmittedforeachreceivedsymbolwiththeleastpossibleprobabilityoferror.

What is Digital Modulation/Demodulation

Indigitalcommunications,thedigitalinformationsignalisrepresentedbyasequenceofsymbols.The symbolsmaytakeanyvalueofasomepowerof2numberofpossibilitiesequalto m (forexample,one of2,4,8,16,32,64,or128possibilities).Inthiscase,eachsymbolcarriesanumberofbitsequalto n thatisrelatedto m by

n = log 2 m
1

EE 499: Wireless & Mobile Communications (082)

Dr. Wajih A. Abu-Al-Saud

Lecture13:ModulationTechniquesforMobileRadio
Forthepreviousvaluesof m possibilities,thecorrespondingnumberofbitsis1,2,3,4,5,6,or7bits. Thepurposeofthedemodulatorpartofthecommunicationsystemistodetectwhichofthe m symbols wastransmittedforeachreceivedsymbolwiththeleastpossibleprobabilityoferror.

Factors Affecting the Choice of the Digital Modulation Technique

As mentioned above, the purpose of a digital communication system is modulate/demodulate the information signal to provide the lowest possible probability of error using the lowest amount of transmittedsignalpowerpossible(lowestsignaltonoiseratio)andlowestamountofbandwidth.This meansthatthecommunicationsystemshouldprovidethebestcommunicationpossiblebyspendingthe leastamountofmoneypossible.Simplystated,agoodcommunicationsystemshould 1. Providetheleastpossibleprobabilityoferrorusingtheleastamountofsignalpower 2. Providethehighesttransmissionrateusingtheleastamountofbandwidth 3. Providethebestimmunitytochannelimpairmentsusingthecheapestpossibleequipment Unfortunately, the requirements above are clearly contradicting each other. So, the design of a communicationsysteminvolvesatradeoffprocessbetweenthesecontradictingrequirements. Somemodulationtechniquesprovidebetterprobabilityoferrorforaparticularsignalpowercompared toothertechniqueswhilesomeothersprovideefficiencyintermsofbandwidth.So,usuallythedemand onthecommunicationsystemdetermineswhichmodulationtechniquetogowith.

Power Efficiency and Bandwidth Efficiency

Performanceofaparticularmodulationtechniqueismeasureusingtwo criteria:Powerefficiencyand Bandwidthefficiency. Power Efficiency: is the ability of a modulation technique to operate at a specific probability of error usingthelowestamountoftransmittedpower(ortheabilityofamodulationtechniquetoprovidethe lowersprobabilityoferrorataspecificamountofsignalpower).Thepowerefficiency(sometimescalled energyefficiency) P isusuallymeasuredintermsoftherequiredenergyofatransmittedbit Eb over thenoisepowerspectraldensity N0 (i.e., Eb N0 )neededtoprovideaparticularprobabilityoferror. Notethat Eb hastheunitsof(Joules)and N0 hastheunitsof(Watts/Hz). BandwidthEfficiency:istheabilityofamodulationtechniquetotransmitaspecificamountofdataper second using the smallest amount of channel bandwidth (or the ability of a modulation technique to transmit the highest amount of data per second using a specific amount of channel bandwidth). The bandwidthefficiency B (hastheunitsofbitspersecondperHz,orsimplybits)isusuallymeasuredas thedatarate Rb (inbit/s)overthebandwidth B (Hz)usedtotransmitthisdata:

EE 499: Wireless & Mobile Communications (082)

Dr. Wajih A. Abu-Al-Saud

Lecture13:ModulationTechniquesforMobileRadio
B =

Rb B

bps/Hz

Channel Capacity
Itappearsthathighvaluesofbandwidthefficienciescanbeachievedbysimplycompactingmorebitsin eachtransmittedsymbol.Thatis,makethevalueof m extremelylarge(forexample, m = 2 )sothat eachsymbolcarriesalargenumberofbitsandtherefore,increasethedatarate.Thisisintheorytrue for a completely noiseless channel. For noisy channels, which is always the case, this is not possible. Unfortunately, Shannon proved in 1948 that each channel has a fundamental channel capacity C of datathatyoucannotexceed.Heprovedthatforaparticularchannelwithaspecificsignaltonoiseratio ( S / N or SNR), it is possible to transmit data below this channel capacity C using some coding algorithmthatwillinsureasmallprobabilityoferroraslowasyouwish(onlyifyoucanfindthatcoding algorithm). If you try to exceed the channel capacity C , the probability or error you get increases
1000

uncontrollably. Therefore, the maximum bandwidth efficiency B (Max ) that you can get for a channel withaspecificSNRis:

B (Max ) =

C S = log 2 1 + bps/Hz B N

Tradeoff between Power Efficiency and Bandwidth Efficiency

Therearetwomaintechniquesthatallowustotradeoffpowerefficiencywithbandwidthefficiency: 1. Using error control coding increases the amount of data to be transmitted over a particular bandwidth (reduces bandwidth efficiency) but it reduces the probability of error in the transmitted data allowing the use of lower power to achieve a fixed probability of error (increasespowerefficiency). 2. Using a larger value of number of symbols m increases the transmitted data over the bandwidth(increasesbandwidthefficiency)butitrequirestheuseofhigherpowertoachieve thesameprobabilityoferror(reducespowerefficiency). Using these two techniques allows us to strike a balance between power efficiency and bandwidth efficiency.

Exercise:
TheV.92modemyouuseinyourcomputerhasamaximumspeedof56kbps(kilobitspersecond).If thechannelitusestotransmitdatahaspassbandfrom300Hzto3400Hz,whatistheminimumS/N ratioofthedownstreamchannelwhenthemodemisconnectedatthemaximumrate?Whatisthe minimumS/Nwhenthemodemisconnectedat28kbps?WhatistheminimumS/Nfortheupstream 3

EE 499: Wireless & Mobile Communications (082)

Dr. Wajih A. Abu-Al-Saud

Lecture13:ModulationTechniquesforMobileRadio
connectionofthemodemknowingthatthemaximumS/Nforthatconnectionis33.6kbps?Whatisthe bandwidthefficiencyofthedownstreamchannelofthemodemassumingmaximumconnectionspeed? Whatisthebandwidthefficiencyoftheupstreamchannelofthemodemassumingmaximum connectionspeed?