COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

Copyright Regulations 1969

WARNING

This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by or on

behalf of Swinburne University of Technology pursuant to Part VB of the
Copyright Act 1968 (the Act).

The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the

Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may
be the subject of copyright protection under the Act.
Do not remove this notice.

TNE30003
Communications Principles
AM Detection
Dragi Klimovski

March 2018
 Aims
• Understand how the message is retrieved
from a AM signal. (AM Detection).
• Describe Product Detection.
• Describe Envelope Detection.
• References: Proakis 3.3 or Mesiya 4.2.2, 4.3.2

Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003

 Detection
• Detection or demodulation is the process of
retrieving information that was superimposed
(modulated) on a carrier wave.
• If the Carrier wave is a sinusoid then the
information is contained in either the amplitude,
frequency or phase variation.
• For AM the variation of the amplitude contains
the information or message.
• A possible method to demodulate AM is:
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
 Product Detection
• Product Detection is performed using the
following:

Balanced
Amplitude Modulator
Modulated
Signal y(t) z(t) xd(t)
LPF
message
cos(ct)
Local Lowpass
carrier Filter
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
 Product Detection of (DSB-SC)
• Consider a DSB-SC signal at the input:
y (t )  Ac x(t )cos( ct )
• The output of the balanced modulator is:
z (t )  y (t )cos( ct )
 Ac x(t) cos( c t )cos( c t )
 Ac x (t ) 12  cos( c   c )t  cos( c   c )t 
 Ac x(t ) 12  cos(2 ct )  1
Wanted
 Ac
2 cos(2 c t ) x(t )  Ac
2 x (t ) message

Unwanted
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
component
 Product Detection of (DSB-SC)
• Since the unwanted component is at twice
the carrier frequency it can easily be
removed using a LPF (if fc>>W) thus:
Scaling factor
Ac
xd (t )  2
x (t )
• The recovered message x(t) has been scaled
by a factor of Ac/2, this is not a problem since
an amplifier with gain of 2/ Ac can be used to
restore the original message amplitude (if
required).
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
 Product Detection of DSB-SC: Spectra
Spectrum of |Y(f)|DSB
|M(f)| Message signal
DSB-SC 1 in frequency
Spectrum
f domain
-fc 0 fc f after
0
-(fc +W) -W -(fc -W) fcW-W fc+W
balanced
|Z(f)|DSB
modulator

f
-2fc -W 0 W 2fc
|Z(f)|DSB Remove
using LPF
f
-2fc -W 0 W 2fc
|Xd(f)|DSB
Ac/2

f
-W 0 W
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
 Product Detection of (SSB)
• Product detection can also be used to
demodulate SSB.
Balanced
SSB Modulator
Modulated
Signal y(t) z(t) xd(t)
LPF
message
cos(ct)
Local Lowpass
carrier Filter
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
Product Detection of SSB: Spectra
|Y(f)|SSB
|M(f)| Message signal
1 in frequency
domain
f
-fc
0
0 fc f Spectrum
-(fc +W) -W W fc+W
|Z(f)|SSB
after
balanced
modulator
f
-2fc -W 0 W 2fc
|Z(f)|SSB Remove
using LPF
f
-2fc -W 0 W 2fc
|Xd (f)|SSB
A c/2

f
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
-W 0 W
 Product Detection
• Difficulty with product detection of DSB-SC or
SSB is that a local carrier (at the receiver) must
be generated which is in phase and frequency
synchronism with the received carrier.
• This problem can be overcome by adding a
small carrier (Pilot) to the DSB-SC or SSB, this
can be extracted and used to demodulate the
DSB-SC or SSB signal.

Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003

 Product Detection of (DSB-LC)
• Product detection can also be used to
demodulate DSB-LC.
• Try the maths out for yourselves!!
• With DSB-LC can use a different method of
detection called Envelope Detection.

Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003

 Envelope Detection (DSB-LC)
• For DSB-LC the message is contained in the
envelope as long as m100%.
• If this holds the message can be recovered using
an Envelope Detector.
• The Envelope Detector circuit is:
message

DSB-LC
Diode C R

Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003

Envelope Detection (DSB-LC)
Envelope

t t

The diode removes the

negative part of the signal.

t
The capacitor charges to the
peak value and discharges
slowly through the resistor.
Recovered
Message
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
 Envelope Detection (DSB-LC)
• For best operation we require that the
time constant RC satisfies:
1
W   f c
2RC
• For a single tone message:

1 1  m2
RC 
m m
Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003
Envelope Detection (DSB-LC)
RC to large

RC too small
Optimum RC

Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003

 Envelope Detection (DSB-LC)
• Envelope detection will only work with DSB-LC
and not with DSB-SC or SSB.
• Advantages of the envelope detector are:
– Is cheap and easy to implement.
– Doesn’t require a local carrier to be generated at
the receiver.

Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003

 Summary
• Demodulation or detection is the
process of recovering the message from
the modulated signal.
• Product detection can be used to
demodulate DSB-SC, DSB-LC, SSB.
• Envelope detection can be used only if
a large carrier is present, thus it can
only demodulate DSB-LC.

Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003

 Resources
• Demodulation SSB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wql
uAk_ufbA

Department of Telecommunications, Electrical and Robotics Engineering TNE30003