Modulation

Evan Everett and Michael Wu

ELEC 433 - Spring 2013

Questions from Lab 1?

Modulation
x(t) = A sin(t + ) Carrier

Data 10100
Modulation
Goal: overlay

data onto carrier signal (sinusoid)

Sinusoids

have two very accessible parameters

Modulate

amplitude and phase

Modulation
Why not?

1) Interference avoidance
2) High freq small antennas

Data 10100
Modulation
Goal: overlay

data onto carrier signal (sinusoid)

Sinusoids

have two very accessible parameters

Modulate

amplitude and phase

Signal Representation: Phasor

Polar: Amplitude

& Phase

Rectangular: In-phase (I)

& Quadrature (Q)

Am
pl

itu
de

/2

Q
Im[x]

Phase
0

I
Re[x]

-/2

x(t) = A sin(t + )

x(t) = I cos(t) + Q sin(t)

I = A sin()

Q = A cos()

Signal Representation
Rectangular

(I,Q) form suggests a practical implementation

I

Q
Im[x]

cos(t)

10100

I
Re[x]

I cos(t) + Q sin(t)

90

sin(t)

Q
Modulation

= mapping data bits to (I,Q) values

Digital Modulation
[01]

[10]

[00]

[11]

Maps

bits to complex values (I/Q) (focus of the Lab 3)

Complex
Set
#

modulated values are called symbols

of symbols is called constellation or alphabet

of symbols in constellation is modulation order, M

M-order

constellation can encode ______ bits per symbol

Digital Modulation
[01]

[10]

[00]

[11]

Maps

bits to complex values (I/Q) (focus of the Lab 2)

Complex
Set
#

modulated values are called symbols

of symbols is called constellation or alphabet

of symbols in constellation is modulation order, M

M-order

constellation can encode log2(M) bits per symbol

Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

Encodes

information only in phase

BPSK (M =2)

QPSK (M =4)

8-PSK (M =8)
[000]

[0]

Constant

[00]

[01]

[10]

[11]

[001]

[1]

power envelope

Pros: no need to recover amplitude, no need for linear amplifier

Con: wastes amplitude dimension

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)

Encodes

information in both amplitude and phase

(I,Q)

4-QAM

M grid

16-QAM

Common in wideband systems:

64-QAM

802.11b

802.11g/n

802.11ac

16-QAM

64-QAM

256-QAM

Bit-to-Symbol Mapping
Confusing

with neighbor is most likely error

Best to minimize bit-difference between neighbors

Gray

Coding

Neighboring symbols differ by only one bit

Extra performance at zero cost (this is rare!)

Natural-coded
QPSK

[01]

[10]

[00]

[11]

Gray-coded
QPSK

[01]

[11]

[00]

[10]

Tradeoff: Rate vs. Error Probability

By

increasing modulation order, M, we get:

More

data in same bandwidth :)

Lower

noise tolerance (i.e. higher error probability) :(

Therefore, SNR

dictates feasible constellation size

QPSK: 2 bits/symbol
Q

QPSK: 2 bits/symbol
Q

16-QAM: 4 bits/symbol
Q

64-QAM: 6 bits/symbol
Q

Bit error rate (BER) vs. SNR per bit (Eb/N0)

1E+00
BPSK
QPSK
8-PSK
16-QAM
64-QAM

1E-01
1E-02

BER

1E-03
1E-04
1E-05
1E-06
1E-07
1E-08
1E-09
0

10

12

Eb/N0 (dB)

14

16

18