TECHNIA

International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)

ANALOG & DIGITAL MODULATION

TECHNIQUES: AN OVERVIEW
D.K.Sharma1, A. Mishra2 & Rajiv Saxena3
1

Ujjain Engineering College, Ujjain, MP

Madhav Institute of Technology & Science, Gwalior, MP
3
Jaypee Institute of Engineering & Technology, Guna, MP
2

dilip_sharma1172@yahoo.com; 2drabhaymishra@yahoo.com; 3rajiv.saxena@jiet.ac.in,

Abstract:
A tremendous technological transformation during the last two
decades has provided a potential growth in the area of digital
communication and lot of newer applications and technologies
are coming up everyday due to these reasons. Restricting
overself to the domain of modulation techniques a brief
overview over different analog and digital modulation
techniques has been provided in this article through extensive
literature survey in a tabular manner enabling to analyze and
establish the superiority at a glance of a specific modulation
technique for a particular application.

1.0 INTRODUCTION:
Living in the era of communication every thing
may be video, audio or any information in the form of
electrical signal is termed as data and there is an enormous
requirement of data transfer between two or more point
through the world wide web, every moment of the clock,
which is a big threaten to the existing communication
systems because of the problems like spectral congestion,
severe adjacent & co-channel interference problems and
noise corrupted data reception etc. This has resulted in
serious need for the research work all around the world for
the development of the communication systems which can
handle the above said problems, where each aspect of the
communication systems is dealt with the development of
new encoding techniques, modulation techniques,
possibilities for newer transmission channels and off course
the demodulation and decoding techniques [1, 2].
The design of a communication system is application
oriented and is dependent on the type of the signal. The
choice of digital communication technique over its analog
counter part becomes more evident of the fact that it provide
larger immunity to noise for even at the price of large
bandwidth requirements, where as the requirement of video,
Audio and data over the computer network or the mobile
telephony network termed as the third generation (3G)
mobile communication poses a serious problem for the
bandwidth so The existing modulation techniques need to be
modified for the purpose where it can handle both the
situations of noise and bandwidth efficiency [3, 4].
The major advantage of using digital modulation
technique is that the use of digital signals reduces hardware,
noise and interference problems as compared to the
analogue signal where large number of waveforms will be
required resulting in a larger bandwidth for the symbol to be
transmitted [5].
Over the past years various modulation techniques
have been designed and extensively used for various
applications but the modern communication system requires
data transmission at a higher rate, larger bandwidth in order

to have multimedia transmission, hence the existing modulation

techniques are not able to provide a complete solution keeping
this in the view the authors of this article have tried to draw a
sketch within the existing modulation techniques to derive out
exactly what modifications or the alterations in the present
techniques may sort out the problem or there is still a need for
designing a new modulation technique for the purpose of the
present communication system requirements [6, 7].
2.0 Classification of Modulation Techniques.
Modulation is the process of varying some parameter of
a periodic waveform in order to use that signal to convey a
message. Normally a high-frequency sinusoidal waveform is
used as carrier signal. For this purpose ,if the variation in the
parameter of the carrier is continuous in accordance to the input
analog signal the modulation technique is termed as analog
modulation scheme if the variation is discrete then it is termed as
Digital Modulation Technique [8].
Sr.
No
.
01

02

Table-1: Type of Modulation Techniques

Modulation
Techniques
Analog
Modulation
Techniques

Digital
Modulation
Techniques

Type

Notation

(i) Amplitude
Modulation
(ii) Frequency
Modulation
(iii) Phase
Modulation
(i) Amplitude
Shift Keying
(ii) Frequency
Shift Keying
(iii)Phase Shift
Keying

A.M.
F.M.
P.M.
A.S.K.
F.S.K.
P.S.K.

2.1 Analog Modulation Techniques:There are basically three type of analog modulation
schemes the amplitude modulation , the Frequency modulation
and the phase modulation schemes which have in turn lot of
class, subclass or derivatives as listed in Table-2 [9, 10]. In case
of the Amplitude Modulation there are several derivatives and it
is evident from the comparative table -3 that the Single Side
Band Suppressed Carrier (SSS-SC) has smaller bandwidth and
power requirements in contrast with Double Side Band
Suppressed Carrier (DSB SC) and Double Side Band Full
Carrier (DSB FC) and Single Side Band Full Carrier (SSB FC)
but for detection of this signal, we require sharp cutoff Low Pass
Filter (LPF) which is not practically viable. Using the Vestigial
Side Band (VSB) technique in place of (SSB SC), we can

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International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)

achieve a low pass filter with a gradual cut off but it requires
more BW and power than SSB-SC and less then the DSBSC and DSB-FC and hence ideally SSB-SC is proves to be
better than other AM schemes but practically, VSB proves
to be a much better candidate then the other amplitude
modulation techniques [11, 12].
The Amplitude modulated signals require nonlinear
amplifiers which generate spurious out-of-band spectral
components which are filtered out with a great difficulty.
Frequency Modulation proves to be better in comparison to
amplitude modulation and phase modulation, and the
derivative of frequency modulation, narrow band FM
(NBFM) is usually employed to overcome above mentioned
problems in the communication system [13, 14].
Table-3 provides representation, bandwidth requirement and
power requirement properties of various analog modulation
techniques. The great merit of FM over AM is that FM
allows us to suppress the effects of noise at the expense of
bandwidth. The major limitation of the analog modulation
systems for communicating over long channels is that once
noise has been introduced at any place along the channel,
then it is carried out till the end. Because the analog
modulation system ( AM, FM and
PM ) are extremely
sensitive to the noise present at the receiver end in contrast
to this if a digital signal is modulated and transmitted the
received signal is far less sensitive to receiver
.
2.2 Digital Modulation Techniques:After the conversion of an Analog signal to digital
by sampling different type of digital modulation schemes
can be achieved by the variation of different parameter of
the carrier signal for example the Amplitude variation gives
BASK, Frequency variation gives BFSK and the phase
variation gives BPSK. Also sometimes a combinational
variation of this parameter is done to generate the hybrid
modulation technique viz. a combinational variation of
Amplitude and Phase Shift Keying (APSK). Many more
digital modulation techniques are available and can also be
designed depending upon the type of signal and the
application [17].
Thus a better digital modulation technique is to be
thought over by the designer which has an ability of
exploiting the available transmitted power and the
bandwidth to its full extent [18, 19].
In order to achieve a discrete signal it is essential to
have the modulating signal of the form of a NRZ rectangular
pulse thus yielding the modulated parameter as a discrete
signal switching or keying between two discrete values [20].
However, ASK, FSK, and PSK with Nyquiste pulse shaping
at the base band form the basic technique of digital
modulation, but other methods are also possible with
hybridization of two or more basic digital modulation
schemes with or without pulse shaping [21, 23].
3. Classification of Digital Modulation.
These digital modulation techniques can be
classified basically either on the basis of their detection
characteristics or in terms of their bandwidth compaction
characteristics [24]. Various types of digital modulation
techniques are listed in Table-4 and few of them have been
comprehensively emphasized here in details providing a
comparative analysis.

3.1 Binary Amplitude Shift Keying [BASK]

The BASK is obtained by the alteration of the
amplitude of the carrier wave [1, 11]. It is a coherent modulation
technique hence the concept of the co-relation between the
signal, number of basis functions, the I and Q components and
the symbol shaping are not applicable here. It has very poor
bandwidth efficiency. The basic merit of this technique is its
simple implementations but is highly prone to noise and the
performance is well established only in the linear region which
does not make it a viable digital modulation technique for
wireless or mobile application in the present scenario. The
combination with PSK [20] yields derivatives like QAM and MAry ASK, which have much important application with
improved parameters.
3.2 Binary Frequency Shift Keying [BFSK]
When two different frequencies are used to represent
two different symbols, then the modulation technique is termed
as BFSK.BFSK can be a wideband or a narrow band digital
modulation technique depending upon the separation between
the two carrier frequencies, though cost effective and provides
simple implementations but is not a bandwidth efficient
technique and is normally ruled out because of the receiver
design complexities [1-3, 12].
3.3 Binary Phase Shift Keying [BPSK]
When the phase of the carrier wave is altered with
reference of the modulating signal then the resultant modulation
scheme is termed as Phase Shift Keying. The digital modulation
technique can be said to be the simplest form of phase
modulation and is known as binary because the carrier phase
represents only two phase states [13]. It is normally used for high
speed data transfer application, provides a 3dB power advantage
over the BASK modulation technique and is robust and simple in
implementation but proves to be an inefficient user of the
provided bandwidth and is normally termed as a non-linear
modulation scheme. It provides small error rates than any other
systems. The modulation techniques provide a number of
derivatives [20].
3.4 Differential Phase Shift Keying [DPSK]
For the perfect detection of a phase modulated signal, it
become evident that the receiver needs a coherent reference
signal but if differential encoding and phase shift keying are
incorporated together at the transmitter then the digital
modulation technique evolved is termed as Differential Phase
Shift Keying [1, 14]. For the transmission of a symbol 1, the
phase is unchanged whereas for transmission of symbol 0, the
phase of the signal is advanced by
. The track of the phase
change information which becomes essential in determining the
relative phase change between the symbols transmitted. The
whole process is based on the assumption that the change of
phase is very slow to an extent that it can be considered to be
almost constant over two bit intervals (7).
3.5 Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK)
Another extension of the PSK digital modulation technique
is the division of the phase of the carrier signal designed by
allotting four equally spaced values for the phase angle [1-3] as
BPSK by having the information capacity double to it, i.e. the

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International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)

QPSK has four message points in the constellation diagram

and so it becomes a highly bandwidth efficient digital
modulation technique. But the exact phase retrieval becomes
a very important factor for the receiver design
considerations, failing which can give rise to erroneous
detection of the signal. This factor increases the receiver
design complexities. To compensate for these problems,
normally the idea of pulse shaping the carrier modulated
signal is employed with the Root Raised Cosine Pulse
shaping for achieving better performances which in turn
provides a demerits that the constant envelope property of
the signal is lost but then there is a lost but there is a
remarkable improvement in the ISI performance of this
digital modulation technique [15-18].
3.6 Minimum Shift Keying [MSK]
Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) is a modified form of
continuous phase FSK. Here, in this case, the spacing
between the two carrier frequencies is equal to half of the bit
rate which is the minimum spacing that allows the two
frequencies states to be orthogonal [1-3].
An MSK signal can e said to be derived from either an
Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (OQPSK) signal by
replacing a square pulse by cosinusoidal pulse or
alternatively from an FSK signal. The information capacity
of an MSK signal is equal to that of QPSK signal but due to
the cosine pulse shaping the bandwidth requirement is
lesser than that required by QPSK. It achieved smooth
phase transitions thus providing a constant envelope. It has
lower out of band power and can be said to be more
spectrally efficient than the QPSK modulation technique
[19-25].
The major demerits which this digital modulation
scheme suffer s is that it is in the class of linear modulation.
The spectrum is not enough compact to realize [27] data rate
approximating RF channel bandwidth. Table-2 [26, 27]
summarizes representation and different properties of this
technique.
3.7 Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying [GMSK]
An MSK signal is generated by applying a half
sinusoidal pulse in place of a square pulse. If a Gaussian
pulse shape is used instead then the resultant digital
modulation technique is an improved version of the MSK
digital modulation technique in the sense of bandwidth and
spectral efficiency and is termed as GMSK digital
modulation technique (Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying).
Moreover, the major advantage in this technique is the
sufficiently lower side lobe levels and the narrower main
lobe as compared to a QPSK and MSK pulse [18].
GMSK can be viewed as either a frequency or
phase modulation scheme, although the rate of change of
phase is limited by the Gaussian response but he phase
carrier can still advance or retard up to 90o over the course
of the bit period. The severity in pulse shaping lies on the
bandwidth time product (BT) because of the reason that the
achieved phase change over a bit period may fall short by
act on bit error rate [28] but
it still provides improved bandwidth efficiency over MSK.
The bandwidth of a GMSK system is defined by
the relationship between the premodulation filter bandwidth
B and the bit period T B. Thus the decision of value of BT

and data rate is crucial in the sense that there has to be a trade of
between the BER and out of band interference [29, 30] as the
narrow filter will result in provocation of Inter Symbol
Interference (ISI) which on the other hand will reduce the signal
power enormously [30].
The generation of a GMSK signal can be done by any
one of the two methods as in the case of MSK signals, the
Frequency Shift Keying modulation method. Only difference
which comes in here than the generation of MSK signal is that
the pulse shaping by half root raised cosine pulse is replaced by a
Gaussian pulse shape.
3.8 Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM):The OFDM is a modulation scheme having multicarrier
transmission techniques here the available spectrum is divided
into many carriers each one being modulated at a low rate data
stream. The spacing between the carriers is closer and the
carriers are orthogonal to one another preventing interferences
between the closely spaced carriers hence OFDM can be thought
of as a combination of modulation and multiplexing techniques,
each carrier in a OFDM signal has very narrow bandwidth so the
resulting symbol rate is low which means that the signal has high
tolerance to multipath delay spread reducing the possibility of
inter symbol interferences (ISI) which is the requirement for
The higher is the transmission rate, the large will be the
bandwidth of the signal as compared with the coherence
bandwidth of the propagation channel, at this stage the different
spectral components present in the signal will experience
different fading characteristics, this frequency selective fading
has to be characterized using appropriate techniques in order to
achieve acceptable error rate at the detection or output in order to
achieve characterization in frequency selective fading the basic
approach is to partition the signal into frequency bands, each one
of which is narrow as compared to the coherence bandwidth of
the channel and subsequently each of this signal component is
then modulated onto a different sub carrier and the signal
components are sent parallel over the channel. Hence, each
signal component will now experience non- frequency-selective
fading because now the high rate serial data sequence is
converted into a number of lower rate parallel sequences and
then each of them is modulated onto a sub carrier, the effective
method to achieve this is orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM). The modulation parameters dependent on
the data rate used shall be set according to (Table-12) Rate
Dependant Parameter.
4.0 Comparison
The BASK technique is simpler and economic in
implementation and is less prone to errors but provides less
bandwidth efficiency and operates efficiency in the linear region
only, which does not make it an efficient technique for the
wireless communication systems. On the other hand, he BFSK
technique is still less prone to errors and the bandwidth
requirement is the same as that of BASK (Table-4) but is not a
bandwidth efficient technique. The error performance parameter
is better to BASK (Table-9,10). It requires matched filer
detection and because of this, the receiver design complexities
increase and so it is seldom used for wireless or mobile
application.
The BPSK modulation technique is still better than the
above mentioned two modulation techniques. It is a coherent

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International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)

modulation technique and can be used for high speed data

transfer application and has a basic advantage of double
information capacity (Table-7) over BASK and BFSK.
Simple implementation and robustness makes it a useful
technique for satellite communication but on the other hand
it has proved an inefficient use of the bandwidth and is
categorized under a class of non-linear modulation
techniques (Table-5). The error performance is better and is
optimized to achieve minimum possible error rate (Table-6,
7). The detection of phase shift (Table-8) makes the
receiver design complex, so the technique is not of interest
for the wireless or mobile communication applications.
The DPSK technique provides information capacity
similar to BPSK and is considered to be more viable
technique than BPSK and is a non coherent orthogonal
modulation (Table-4, 5). But the receiver complexities are
more than BPSK because memory is required in the system
to keep the track of relative phase difference.
The most widely used technique is the QPSK modulation
technique which has an information capacity double to
BPSK (Table-4) over the same bandwidth and requires
coherent detection, so it can be considered to be highly BW
efficient. Since the modulation envelope is also constant
hence it is said to be spectrally efficient modulation
technique also. Thus it provides major advantages over
BPSK and has also overcome the major drawbacks of the
BPSK.
In detection of a QPSK signal, the detection of exact
phase shit becomes an important criterion which on the
other hand increases receiver design complexities as well.
The improvement further in this modulation technique can
be achieved by pulse shaping the modulated carrier. The
pulse shaping by co-sinusoidal pulse shaping provides a
better performance modulation technique, the Minimum
Shift Keying (MSK), which can also be viewed as
comprising of two CPFSK signals. This has a major
advantage that the out of band power is significantly lower
than QPSK (Table-7) and the 99% of total power of MSK is
1.2 TB thus spectrally efficient and constant envelopes. It
has proved to be a better modulation technique than QPSK
in the sense that the signal coherence and deviation ratio are
largely unaffected by variation in input rates (Table 11).
But the basic demerit (Table 7) of MSK modulation
technique is that the spectrum is not enough compact for the
realization of higher data rates. The GMSK modulation
technique is a variation of MSK where the co-sinusoidal
pulse shaping of the modulated carrier is replaced by the
Gaussian pulse shaping. This improves the envelope and
the spectral efficiency (Table 6, 7). A BT = 0.3 GMSK has
been more popular than its other variants as it is optimized
for the better bandwidth and error performances at this
value. The major disadvantage shown by this modulation
technique is its high susceptibility to ISI at higher data rates
due to the narrow symbol shape (Table 7). The technique is
highly used in GSM mobile communication.
The average probability of bit error at the output of a
demodulator and decoder is the performance measure of the
demodulator decoder combination. To be more precise the
probability of error is a function of code characteristics,
waveforms, the transmitted power, characteristics of the
transmission channel and the demodulation and decoder
combination. Hence the reconstructed signal at the receiving

end is an close approximation of the transmitted signal and the

difference or some function of the difference in the original and
the reconstructed signal. This marks a measure of performance in
terms of distortion in a digital communication system. (Table10) summarizes the BER equations of digital modulation
techniques.
The basic research work carried out in the field of
communication lead to the development of new modulation
techniques, coding techniques, error rate performances analysis
but the ever increasing demand of the faster communication
system with large bandwidth requirements has again generated a
new hunger towards the development of newer techniques, so
many modulation techniques like BPSK, DPSK, MSK, GMSK,
M-ary QAM have been developed. The major consideration with
any modulation technique developed is that its detection
performance should show a better bit error rate (BER)
performance, several methods have been devised for the exact or
improved BER performances of the modulation techniques.
The main objective of a communication system
designer is to transmit message as speedily as possible, with least
probability of error. Fast communication is possible by: (i)
reducing the time of each massage; but this, in turn, increase the
bandwidth and (ii) simultaneous transmission of several
messages over a single physical channel. This process is known
as multiplexing. So OFDM can be a good candidate over other
digital modulation schemes.
5.0 Conclusions:
An analysis of the digital modulation technique carried
out in this article reveals that the selection of a digital
modulation technique is solely dependent on the type of
application.
This is because of the fact that some of the
technique provide lesser complexities in the design of the
modulation and demodulation system and prove economic like
the BASK, BFSK, BPSK and DPSK techniques and can be
visualized for the systems which really does not require high
amount of precisions or when economy is the major aspect and
the BER performances can be tolerated.
On the other hand when the system designer has a sole
consideration for the techniques like BASK, BFSK, BPSK and
designer has to think in terms of better modulation techniques
like the QPSK, MSK and GMSK, where GMSK has proved its
performance over the other two in the area of mobile
communication because of the spectral efficiency. But the
criterion for higher data rate communication is taking the lead in
almost every area of communication and thus the ISI and BER
realization become very important and crucial aspect for any
future digital modulation technique.
Taking the above facts into consideration, the design of
a digital communication system is very trivial and is very much
applications oriented, as one application may require higher
precision in data reception where as the other may compromise
on this aspect but may be rigid on the aspect of the available
bandwidth or power, thus the parameters like the modulation
bandwidth, power, channel noise and the bit error rate become
very important parameters in the designing of digital/wireless
communication system.
Reference:

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1.

S. Haykin, Digital Communication, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Replika

Press Pvt. Ltd., N. Delhi, India, 2000-2001.
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Oxford University Press, New Delhi, India, (3 rd Ed.).
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Series, McGraw-Hill, USA, CA, 1976.
7.
Continuous Phase Modulation Part
I : Full Respons
, IEEE transactions on communications
(Legacy, pre-1988), vol. COM-29, no.3, pp.196-209, 1981.
8. A.
Continuous Phase Modulation
Pa
,
IEEE transactions on
communications (Legacy, pre-1988), vol. Com-29, no.3, pp. 210-225,
1981.
9.
ertain digital Modulation
-18,
no.2, pp. 97-102, 1970.
10. N.D. ndr
Symbol Timing
Es
IEEE transactions on
communications vol.44, no.10, pp.1362-1372, 1996.
11.
12.
13.
14.

communication, vol. SAC-2, no.4, pp.487-497, 1984.

26.

29.
30.

Sr.
No.

envelope signals with ef

IEEE
transactions on communications, vol.38, no.8, pp.1164-1172, 1990.

communications, vol. COM-29, no.7,

1044-1050, 1981.

Detected GMSK

transactions on communications, vol. COM-47, pp.1963-1700, 1999.

M.A. Mendlov

Table-2: Classification of Analog Modulation Techniques

MODULATION
TECHNIQUES
Amplitude Modulation
Double-Sideband
Suppressed Carrier
Amplitude Modulation
Double-Sideband With Full
Carrier
Amplitude Modulation
Single-Sideband Suppressed
Carrier
Amplitude Modulation
Single-Sideband With Full
Carrier
Amplitude Modulation
Vestigial-Sideband

REPRESENT
ATION
AM
DSB-SC

AM
SSB-SC

Linear

AM
SSB-FC

Linear

AM
VSB

Linear

Narrow-Band Frequency
Modulation

NBFM

NonLinear

Wide-Band Frequency
Modulation

WBFM

NonLinear

Phase Modulation

PM

NonLinear

Table-3: Performance Analysis of Analog Modulation Schemes

Sr.
No
.

TYPE OF
ANALOG
MODULATION

AM-DSB-FC

AM-DSB-SC

AM-SSB-FC

AM-SSB-SC

AM-VSB

NBFM

WBFM

BANDWI
DTH
(B. W.)

m
m

transactions on communications, vol. COM-24, no.8, pp.845-856,

1976.

m =
modulating
frequency

-29,

IEEE transactions on communications, vol.COM-29, no.6, pp.916918, 1981.

Linear
Linear

transactions on communications, vol.47, no.2, pp.181-184, 1999.

no.8, 809-819, 1976.

TYPE

AM
DSB-FC

COM-25, no.9, pp.1032-1036, 1977.

transaction on communications, vol. COM-25, pp.433-441, 1977.

vol.1, pp.685-690 (Oct-7-10), 2002.

g Several

pulse shaping for MSKcommunications, vol.44, no.7, pp.769-771, 1996.

22.
ower spectral density for full
response Mon communications, computers and signal processing, vol.1, pp.182186, 9-10 May, 1991.
23.
modulation technique
vol.36, no.1, pp.32-40, 1988.
24.
-type

25.

28.

optimization for nontransactions on communications, vol.41, no.11, pp.1606-1609, 1993.

15. J.K. Gautam, A. Ku
: A Tool in Signal
-226, 1995.
16.
modulation classification for digitally
transactions, San Diego, CA. Vol.2, pp.712-716, 1992.
17.
-Likelihood Method
29, pp.1132-1136, 1996.
18. A.J.
cosine serie
Miltary communications conference, MILCOM-92, CONFERENCE
RECORD
Fusing command control and intelligence : IEEE
transactions (11-14th Oct.), vol.1, pp.0395-0399, 1922.
19.
Frequency and Time Recovery for
MSKvol.47, no.6, pp.938-946, 1999.
20. J. Lu, K.B. Letaief, J.C.-PSK and M21.

27.

F =

modulatio
n index in
FM

%
POWER
SAVING

POWER
REQUIREM
ENT

Standard

3/2 Pc

66.67%

5/4 Pc

16.67%

1/2 Pc

83.33%

1/4 Pc

>SSB-SC

Greater than
SSB-SC

Same as
DSB-SC
More
than
F
NBFM
P =

modulati
on in PM

Same as
DSB-SC
More than
NBFM
Pc = carrier
power

Table 4: Classification & Performance Analysis of Digital Modulation

Techniques [1-7]
Sr.
Modulation
Representation
Type
BW

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International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)

Technique
Binary
Modulation
Scheme
Binary
Amplitude
Shift Keying
Binary
Frequency
Shift Keying
Binary Phase
Shift Keying
Differential
Phase Shift
Keying
Quadrature
Modulation
Scheme
Quadrature
Phase Shift
Keying
Minimum
Phase Shift
Keying

requirement

BASK

Non
coherent

2RB

BFSK

Non
coherent

2RB

BPSK

Coherent

2RB

DPSK

Non
coherent

2RB

01

02

03

01

02

03

04

M-ary Phase
Shift Keying
M-ary
Quadrature
Amplitude
Shift
Modulation
M-ary
Frequency
Shift Keying
Orthogonal
Frequency
Division
Multiplexing
Binary Phase
Shift Keying
OFDM
Quadrature
Amplitude
Modulation
OFDM
16Quadrature
Amplitude
Modulation
OFDM
64Quadrature
Amplitude
Modulation
OFDM

2RB

MSK

Coherent

Less than
QPSK
Where

2N , N

M-ary QAM

M-ary FSK

OFDM

BPSK-OFDM

QAM-OFDM

16-QAMOFDM

64-QAMOFDM

Coherent

Coherent

Coherent

/N

/N

M2

/N

Coherent

Coherent
Coherent

Coherent

Coherent

on

g
Rate
(R)

bits
Per
Subcarrier

bits
Per
OFDM
Symbo
l

bits
Per
OFDM
Symbo
l

CBPS

Coherent

M-ary PSK

Rate
(Mbit
s/s)

BPSC

QPSK

M-ray
Modulation
Scheme

N
o.

BPSK

48

24

BPSK

48

36

12

QPSK

96

48

18

QPSK

96

72

24

16-QAM

192

96

36

16-QAM

192

144

48

64-QAM

2/3

288

192

54

64-QAM

288

216

Table-12: Numerical Values for the OFDM [Multicarrier Modulation Schemes]

Parameters
Sr.
PARAMETERS
VALUE
No.
1
20Mhz
Sampling Rate
= 1/T
2

Less than
Other
techniques
Less than
Other
techniques
Less than
Other
techniques
Less than
Other
techniques

DBPS

3
4

Useful Symbol Part Duration

64*T
3.2 microsecond

Cyclic Prefix Duration

16*T, 0.8 Sec. (mand.)

8*T, 0.4 Sec. (Opti.)

Symbol Interval

80*T, 4 Sec,

72*T
5

Number of Data Sub-carriers

Number of Pilot Sub-carriers

Total Number of Sub-

48

SD

SP

carriers
8
9

10
11

52 (

Sub-carrier Spacing

Spacing Between the two

outmost sub-carriers

FFT Size,

SD +

SP )

ST

FFT

Used Sub-carrier index

0.3125 Mhz ( 1/

16.25 Mhz
(

ST

F )

64
{ -26 to -1 , +1 to +26 }

Table-11: Modulation Parameters of Digital Modulation Techniques in

multicarrier Modulation Schemes
Sr. Data
Modulati
Codin Coded
Coded
Data

Sr.

Digital

Table-6: Parametric Study of Digital Modulation Techniques [1, 8-30]

No. of
Type of
No. of Message
Information
BW
BW Efficiency

556

Symbol

TECHNIA

International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)
No.

Modulation
Technique
Type

Symbols

Envelope

points

Capacity

required

01

BASK

01

Not
Constant

Shaping

01

Poor

2RB

Poor

Not required

2RB

Not BW Efficient

Not required

O2

BFSK

01

Constant

01

Better than
BASK (NC)

03

BPSK

02

Constant

02

Double to
BFSK (NC)

2RB

04

DPSK

02

Constant

01

Same as
BPSK

2RB

05

QPSK

04

Constant

04
Expressed in
terms of Signal
Energy/Symbol

Double of
BPSK

2RB

Same as
QPSK

Less than
QPSK

Same as
MSK

Narrow BT0.3 popular

Excellent

Required
Gaussian
Pulse

High
Than
above

Less than
Other
techniques

Excellent
Than
above

Better than
Above
Schemes

Used for High

speed data
transfer
For Medium
speed
communication

Required,
Rectangular
Pulse

Out of Band
Power
Significantly
lower than
QPSK, 99% of
total Power of
MSK is 1.2TB

Required
Half CoSinusoidal
pulse

06

MSK

04

Constant

07

GMSK

04

Constant

04

08

OFDM
BPSKOFDM
QAM-OFDM
16-QAM
64-QAM

02
04
16
64

Sr.
No.

Type of Digital
Mode Tech

Derived From

01

BASK

ASK

- 13 db

Simple implementation, low cost

02

BFSK

FSK

- 13 db

03

BPSK

PSK

- 13 db

04

DPSK

PSK

- 13 db

Simple implementation, low cost

Simple implementation, robust, used
mostly for satellite communication, 3 dB
Power advantage over BASK
Reduces complexities of Receiver design
for non coherent case

05

QPSK

PSK

- 13 db

Twice the data in same BW, hence BW

efficient, more spectrally efficient than
BPSK

MSK

From OQPSK by
replacing square
pulse by Cosinusoidal pulse

- 13 db

GMSK

From FSK by
replacing CoSinusoidal pulse
by Gaussian
pulse

Fast roll of factor

with BT = 0.3,
narrow main lobe,
lower side lobe
level

Constant envelope, out of band power is

lower, minimum spacing allows two
frequencies to be orthogonal, spectrally
efficient and easily generated, smooth
phase transition as compared to QPSK

06

07

02
04
16
64

Table-7: Merits & Demerits of Digital Modulation Techniques [1, 7-14, 19-30]
MSLL

OFDM
08

BPSK-OFDM
QAM-OFDM
16-QAM
64-QAM

Not required

Highly BW
efficient

04
Expressed in
terms of Signal
Energy/Bit

Not
Constant

Not required

From multicarrier
modulation
scheme

__

Merits

Demerits
Not an BW efficient
technique, more noise
prone, operates only in
linear region
Received design complex
Inefficient use of BW, nonlinear modulation scheme
Efficient less than coherent
PSK
Complex receiver design,
pulse shaping is required
but then it losses its
constant envelope property
Linear modulation, the
spectrum is not compact
enough to realize data rates
approximating rf CHANNEL
bw

Constant envelope, spectrally efficient,

widely used in GSM mobile
communication with BT = 0.3

Promotes ISI at higher bit

rate transmission

Robust to ICI & ISI, High Spectral

Efficiency, Efficiently implementation by
FFT, Low sensitivity to time
synchronization errors, Tuned sub channel
receiver filter are not required, Facilitates
single frequency network i., Complex
equalization.

1. Sensitive to Doppler Shift.

2. To frequency
synchronization problem. 3.
Inefficient transmitter power
consumption since linear
power amplifier is required.

Table 8: Detection Performance Analysis of Digital Modulation Techniques [1-7, 19-30]

Sr.
No.

Digital
Modulation
Techniques

01

BASK

Simple demodulation

02

BFSK

Simple demodulation (Matched filter

Demodulation Performance

Combination with other

techniques
With PSK
Special case of orthogonal

557

Derivatives
QAM Quadrature Amplitude
Modulation (used extensively in
digital microwave links M-ray ASK
M-ray FSK

TECHNIA

International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)
detection)

modulation
With ASK-QAM

03

BPSK

Phase shift detection makes the Rx

complex

04

DPSK

Receiver requires memory to measure

relative phase difference between wave
forms received in successive intervals

05

QPSK

Phase shift detection is important

06

MSK

Direct injection of NRZ data to frequency

modulator with Modulation Index 0.5

07

GMSK

08

OFDM

Non coherent orthogonal

modulation when considered
over two bit interval
Different phase variation.
Replacement of a square pulse
by sinusoidal pulse to give
MSK
Replacement of co-sinusoidal
pulse by Gaussian pulse to give
GMSK

Bandwidth time product BT is an important

factor performance is measured by SNR
versus BER
Bandwidth time product BT is an important
factor performance is measured by SNR
versus BER

QAM, incoherent detection, QPSK,

OQPSK, BPSK, /4PSK, 16 PSK,
MPSK
/4 DPSK
OQPSK-Q channel shifted by
symbol QPSK to OQPSK to
/4 QPSK when differentially
decoded referred to as /4 DQPSK
GMSK

Nil

GMSK BT = 0.3
GMSK BT = 0.5

BPSK,QAM,16-QAM,
64-QAM

BPSK,QAM,16-QAM,
64-QAM

Table-9: Performance Characteristics of Digital Modulation Techniques (1-7, 12-18)

1

01

Digital
Modulation
Technique

BASK

Error
Probability

1
exp
2

8
,

, for

02

BFSK

03

04

05

06

07

BPSK

DPSK

&

One

Performs Well at high

Nil

One

One

Less
Prone

Two

Two

Less
Prone

Two

Two

Prone
To
ISI

Two

Two

Less
Prone
Than
QPSK

Two

Two

More
Prone
Than
MSK

Two

Two

FSK for same signal

energy and bit rate.

Required

1
exp
2

MSK

0.25,

is 3

dBless than that of

BFSK for same error
rate.
Performance better over
BPSK & BFSK but
major draw back is used
of square pulse, can be
improved by shaping
with root raised cosine
improving ISI.
The signal coherence
and derivation ratio are
largely unaffected by
variations in input data
rate.

BT

Nil

Small error rate than

any other system but
restriction of AWGN on
1 bit decoding .It is
optimum as it achieves
minimum possible error
rate.

1
erfc
2

Efficient only in linear

region

No.
of
Basis
Funct
ions
One

values as PSK &

Noise & Bit density,

Dimens
ions

BW

QPSK

GMSK

ISI
Status

Noisepower,

Amplitude,
1
exp
2

Error
Performance

The carrier is lag of lead

by 90 over bit
period, w.r.t. BT
resulting in BER.

0.68,

0.85, BT
558

TECHNIA

International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)

08

OFDM

Minimum than other

schemes

W0W P WT

1
erfc
2 2

Nil

2 in
BPSK
4 in
QPSK
16 in
16QAM

2
S

d d d

2 in
BPS
K
4 in
QPS
K
16 in
16QAM

Table-10: BER Equations of Digital Modulation Techniques

S
r
.
N
o
.
1

MOD.

BPSK

2,1

QPSK

4,2

B.
W.

2N

/
2

SQPSK

4,2

MSK

4,2

M-PSK

M,N

16QAM

16,4

MQAM

M,N

QPR

LQPR

L
level
s
L
level
s

1
0
1
1

1
2

M-FSK

/
2
/
2
/
N
/
4
/
N
/
4

[ / 4(log 2 L)

2[1 1 / L2 ]erfc

(6 /

/
L

{L2 1}) 1 / 2 E b / N o ]

M,N

M
/

OFDM
-BPSK

OFDM
-QPSK

L
2

Pb m

1
2

where

c kI

1
2

4
b

E c 0I

sin

1
2

16

cos E c kI
k

c 0Q

c 0 cos

sin

f 1

d .

0
1
2

Q
0

i1

N 1

cos

cos

k m
k 0

OFDM
16QA
M

k m
k 0

where
1
3

1/ 2

Q
0

559

ck

cos

c kQ m

Mini
mum
B.W.
is
requir
ed
than
other
sche
mes
Mini
mum
B.W.
is
requir
ed
than
other
sche
mes
Mini
mum
B.W.
is
requir

TECHNIA

International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)

i2

1
2

cos 2 dc0Q cos dc0Q

2 sin 2 d sin 2 dc0 sin dc0

d .

1
2

1
k m
k 0

cos 2 dck

cos dck

cos 2 dckQ m cos dckQ m .

ed
than
other
sche
mes

Table 5: Mathematical Representation of Digital Modulation Techniques [1-8, 17, 18]

Mod.

BASK

Mathematical Representation

X(t) = Am (t) cos2 fct for 0 < 1 < TB, m(t) = 1 for Bit 1 & 0 for Bit 0
Signal energy representation
X(t) =

BFSK

2EB
cos 2 f c t
T
B

Xi(t) =

BPSK

DPSK

fc =

2E B
TB

Correlation
between
signals

Component

Q component

Non
Coherent

Non
correlation

Nil

Nil

Non
Coherent

Non
correlation

Nil

Nil

Coherent

Non
correlation

Nil

Nil

Non
coherent

Correlation
exists

Nil

Nil

Coherent

Correlation
exist

Xt(t) =

XQ(t) = -

X1 (t) = 1, (f1) & X2 (t) = 0, (f2) and

X1(t) =

cos(2 fct) for 0 < t t < TB, i = 1,2

Type

cos(2 fct) & X2(t) =

X1(t) for Bit 1 & X2(t) for Bit 0

Over dual bit interval
B

2EB
TB

cos(2 fct+ )

X1(t) =
B

X2(t) =

QPSK
(Phase
division)
Phase
angles
45,135,
225 and
315degr
ee

EB
cos(2 f c t ) for 0 t TB
2TB
EB
cos(2 f c t
2TB

) for TB t 2TB

It is a special case of Non coherent Orthogonal Modulation for TB = 2TB & EB

= 2EB X1(t) for Bit 1 and X2(t) for Bit 0

Xo(t) =

2EB
cos(2n 1) cos(2 f c t )
TB
4
2EB
sin(2n 1) sin(2 f c t )
TB
4

EB

sin
(2n 1)

n = 1, 2, 3, 4

for 0 < t < TB, Where n = 1`,2,3,4 and for

Bit
10
00
01
11
Phase /4 3 /4 5 /4 7 /4

MSK
X1(t) = cos

AB t
TB

2 f ct

Coherent

Where the value of = 0 for A = 1 and the value of = for A = -1. Thus
the above expression can be of the form
(1) X1(t) = cos

for A = 1 & B = + 1

Correlation
exist
Xt(t) = +

2E B
TB
cos

Tb < 1 < Tb

n = 1, 2, 3, 4
XQ(t) = +

2E B
TB
2T B

sin
2TB

Q < 1 < Tb

560

TECHNIA

International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL. 3, NO. 1, July 2010. (ISSN 0974-3375)

2 f ct

(2) X1(t) = cos

for A = -1 & B = + 1

TB

GPSK

G(t) =

Q 2 Bban

1
2T

Coherent

t 0.5TB

Correlation
exists

log e 2
t 0.5TB

Q 2 Bban

I(t) = cos[C(t)] For C to be a

constant such that

CG (t )dt

Q(t) = sin
[C(t)]

log e 2
2

Q(t) =

OFDM

, Bban is the bandwidth of the filter

exp j 2

T = Signal Duration, N = N-Point IDFT,

Signal

samples

;n

t/

;0

Non
Coherent

Non
correlation

Nil

Nil

Non
Coherent

Non
correlation

Nil

Nil

=Scale factor,

0,1,2,......... ,

1.

Sub carrier frequency =

Sub-carriers. EB = Energy of the Bit, TB = Time duration of the Bit, fc =

Carrier Frequency, m(t) = Modulation Index, A = Amplitude, nc = Noise
9

OFDM
With
(BPSK,
QAM,
16QAM,
64QAM)

j 2 f ct

1
k 0

is complex data symbol, T = OFDM block duration,

shape ,

gt

= pulse

= carrier frequency.

561