Noise in Analog Modulation: Assoc Prof. Dr. Ho Van Khuong Tele. Dept., HCMUT Email: A

Noise in Analog Modulation
Assoc Prof. Dr. Ho Van Khuong

Tele. Dept., HCMUT
Email: khuong.hovan@yahoo.ca
1
Noise in CW Modulation
We will discuss about the effects of the channel noise for the linear and
exponential modulations.
Noise analysis is an essential part of developing different communication

systems. The goal is to develop such a system where the effects of noise
are minimized.
If the effect of channel noise can be decreased in the receiver end, then we
can use lower transmission power. This is especially important, e.g., in
mobile phones and in satellite communications, where the power of the
transmitter should be minimized.
2
Noise in Linear Modulation (1)
 The model of an Analog Transmission System
Assumptions:
 Message signal x(t) is ergodic with bandwidth W,
 The attenuation of the channel is L and the channel is distortionless (or

equalized).
 Received power:
 Transmitted waveform:
3
The part of the receiver before the detection is modelled by Band Pass
Filter (BPF) having unit gain and bandwidth of BT. For instance, in super-
heterodyne receiver this is the bandwidth of the IF amplifier. The excess
of amplification and mixing are the same for the signal and noise, and
thus, it is not necessary to take them into account.
The input signal for the detector (pre-detection signal) can be given by:
where n(t) is noise.
In the ideal case, the demodulated signal for different types of

detectors can be expressed as follows:
4
The above formula assumes perfect carrier synchronization in

synchronous detection.
The term corresponds to the removal of the DC offset in the envelope

detector. This can be included in other detectors as well.
If the detector constant were not equal to unity, it would have the same
effect on the signal and noise.
The last part of the system after the detector is a Low Pass Filter HD(f).
The de-emphasis can be included in this filter.
5
 The Input Noise Power for the Detector
The mean square of the noise at the input of the detector is:
Here NR is the power of the noise at the input of the detector. It

includes the channel noise and the noise from the receiver front end. The
combination of these noises is assumed to be white, having the power
spectrum of G(f) = N0 /2. Therefore, the power spectral density (PSD) of
the noise at the input of the detector after filtering with HR(f) is given by:
Recall: the noise power is the integral of the PSD over the bandwidth of
interest.
6
Let’s assume that the filter is almost an ideal Band Pass Filter having the
bandwidth of BT, and then the noise power at the input of the detector is:
7
 S/N Ratio Before the Detection
S/N ratio before the detection is defined as:
This can be rewritten as:
where
This is actually an upper bound for S/N ratio. Nonlinearities in

practical system decrease this ratio.
Note that γ corresponds to the maximum S/N ratio in analog baseband

transmission with the same values of SR and N0. S/N ratio before
detection is never higher than γ.
8
 Bandpass Noise
Let n(t) be a stationary Gaussian noise. It is assumed that it does not
have DC component and thus
It can be expressed by using the in-phase and quadrature components:
where ni(t) and nq(t) are also stationary Gaussian noise, they are
independent and have the properties:
9
 Build-up of bandpass noise components
The power spectral densities of quadrature components are:
10
Bandpass noise for some modulation formats: (a) General case (e.g. VSB);
(b) FM, PM, DSB, AM (α = 1/2); (c) SSB (USSB or LSSB, α = 0 or 1)
11
 The Envelope and Phase of Noise
The bandpass noise can be also expressed in the envelope - phase form:
The following relations hold between the above form and the quadrature
form:
The envelope An has the Rayleigh distribution:
with mean and mean square are given by
12
The probability that An exceeds value a is then:
The phase φn has a uniform distribution over [0, 2π].
Hence
(Use:
13
 Linear Modulation with Noise
The model for the receiver:
S/N ratio at the input of the detector:
Signal and noise at the input of the detector:
The problem is now to determine the output signal yD(t) and the S/N ratio
at the output denoted by (S/N)D for different modulations and detector
types. (S/N)D: post-detection SNR.
14
 Synchronous Detection for DSB
Ideal synchronous detection separates the in-phase component of v(t).
For example, in DSB modulation:
If the post-detection filter (LPF HD(f)) approximates an ideal LPF with

bandwidth W, then
We assume that the frequency response of the filter before the detector
is nearly rectangular, having the bandwidth of BT = 2W centred at fc.
Hence, the power spectrum of the noise is:
This is lowpass-filtered white noise.
15
Because
the S/N ratio after the detection (post-detection SNR) is
Comment: post-detection SNR = 2× pre-detection SNR (for DSB).
For DSB, BT = 2W, thus the post-detection SNR is equal to the

baseband SNR:
Therefore, DSB modulation with ideal synchronous detection has the

same performance as the baseband transmission if the noise power
spectrum is constant.
16
 Synchronous Detection for AM
By assuming that μ =1, AM signal is of the form:
If the synchronous detector removes the DC component, yD(t) has the

same form as for DSB:
Now,
Then, the S/N ratio after the detection is
Because , then the post-detection SNR is at

most equal with half of the baseband SNR.
17
 Synchronous Detection for SSB and VSB
For SSB (as well as for VSB with a small vestige):
Synchronous detection rejects the quadrature component of both signal

and noise, leaving:
In this case,
The S/N ratio after the detection is:
Thus, SSB has the same post-detection S/N ratio as DSB.
18
For VSB+C, the S/N ratio after the detection is approximately the
same as for AM:
assuming that BT ≈ W and µ ≈ 1.
19
 Properties of Synchronous Detection
By assuming that the average transmission power is fixed, the results
derived above show that:
 The message and noise are additive at the output if they are additive at
the detector input.
 If the pre-detection noise spectrum is reasonably flat over
transmission bandwidth, the destination noise spectrum is essentially
constant over the message bandwidth.
 Relative to S/N ratio after the detection, VSB and SSB have no
particular advantage over AM and DSB, respectively.
 The same S/N ratio can be achieved with the linear modulations
as with the baseband transmission (assuming flat noise spectrum).
 Modulations with suppressed carrier (DSB, SSB) provide better S/N
ratio than modulations where the carrier is not suppressed (AM,
VSB+C).
20
Note: If the comparison is based on the peak envelope power (instead of
average power) and the modulating signal is reasonably continuous, SSB
has about 3 dB better S/N ratio than DSB and about 9 dB better than AM.
If modulating signal contains discontinuities, SSB is worse than DSB.
21
 Envelope Detection
Next we will consider envelope detection, which is usually used for
detection of AM. The signal for the detector input can be expressed as:
where we are still taking µ = 1.
From phasor diagram, we obtain:
22
This expression is further developed in two different cases: (1) the level of
the signal is large compared to the noise, (2) the level of the signal is small
compared to the noise.
(1) Large signal power:

In this case, the following approximation is done:
The ideal envelope detector gives:
which is the same result as in the synchronous detection.
(2) Small signal power:

In this case, the noise is written in the form:
23
From the phasor diagram, we obtain:
Therefore,
where
Through signal and noise were additive at input, the detected
message term is multiplied by noise in form of cosφn(t), which
is random. Thus, the message is hopelessly mutilated.
24
There is a threshold effect when using the envelope detection: for
moderate-to-high (S/N)R ratio (i.e., pre-detection SNR), the envelope
detector works as well as the synchronous detector. But, under certain
threshold SNR level, the message signal is lost in noise.
It is difficult to determine the threshold. One criterion is the level where

Ac ≥ An with the probability of 0.99. Then (S / N)R = 4ln10 ≈ 10 dB.
In audio broadcasting, the smallest useful S/N ratio is about 30 dB, and
thus, the threshold effect is not a problem. However, the threshold effect
is a problem in some digital modulation methods, which are used in much
lower S/N ratios.
Note: synchronous detection does not suffer of threshold effect.
25
Noise in Exponential Modulation (1)
The inherent nonlinear nature of exponential modulations (PM, FM) leads
to analytic difficulties. Therefore, we begin with the large signal-to-noise
ratio condition.
Received signal:
In either case, the carrier amplitude remains constant, so
Pre-detection SNR
This is often called the carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR). The pre-detection

BPF is assumed to have a nearly ideal response with bandwidth BT.
26
Model for detection of exponential modulation with noise:
Before detection, the limiter suppresses any amplitude variation

represented by Av(t). Input signal to detector is:
27
From the phasor diagram:
It shows that
28
 Simplified noise model: Large signal powers:
Consider the case where Ac >> An(t) so (S/N)R >> 1. We can use the
small argument approximation to the arctangent function. Next we
assume that φn(t) - φ(t) = φn(t). We assume this step by recalling that φn(t)
has a uniform distribution over [0, 2π]; hence, in the sense of ensemble
averages, φn(t) - φ(t) differs from only by a shift of the mean value. With
these assumptions we obtain:
where is the quadrature component of noise. In this

model, signal phase and equivalent phase noise are additive:
29
 Consider the output of a phase detector, when φ(t) = 0. The PM
post-detection noise spectrum is:
If the out-of-band noise is removed by an ideal low-pass filter with

bandwidth W, then the output of noise power will be
30
 Next, consider the output of a frequency detector with φv(t) = ψ(t).
The output of the instantaneous frequency noise after frequency
discriminator is by definition:
It can be proved that the FM post-detection noise power spectrum

is then
31
If we again take the post-detection filter to be an ideal LPF, the
destination noise power will be:
If we incorporate de-emphasis filtering (i.e. a low pass filter

connected after the detector in order to reduce more the noise)
such that
then the noise power will be
32
In the case of W/Bde >> 1, then
since
Comments:
– Post-detection noise spectral densities have out-of-band
components that must be removed by LPF.
– PM-noise is flat whereas FM-noise spectrum increases
parabolically (higher baseband frequencies suffer from
more noise contamination than lower frequencies). De-
emphasis/pre-emphasis filtering compensates for this
effect.
– The destination noise power decreases when signal
power SR increases (noise quieting).
33
Destination (or Post-detection) SNR for PM:
Now for the case: φ(t) ≠ 0 (still at high signal level). The demodulated
signal plus noise in PM system with φ(t) = φ∆x(t) is
The post-detection filter passes the signal term φ∆x(t), so
From previous result for ND, then we obtain:
PM gives an improvement over DSB-modulation of exactly φ∆2Sx.

But because of φ∆ ≤ π, the improvement is no greater than π2, or about
10 dB.
34
Destination (or Post-detection) SNR for FM:
Also for the case: φ(t) ≠ 0 (still at high signal level). The demodulated
signal plus noise in FM system with is
The post-detection filter passes the signal term f∆x(t), so
From previous result for ND, then we obtain:
For deviation ratio D = f∆ /W, we rewrite:
35
It seems that the destination SNR for FM system can be made
arbitrary large by increasing D.
But there are some limitations. Recall that the deviation ratio increases
when the transmission bandwidth BT increases.
Therefore, exchage increased bandwidth for reduced transmitter

power, while keeping the destination SNR constant.
In the case of wideband FM (WBFM), , so
FM has better SNR than DSB when:
36
Destination SNR for FM using de-emphasis filtering (Bde << W):
The de-emphasis improvement factor is
37
Example: FM-Broadcastings
 without pre-emphasis:
 with pre-emphasis:
38
Therefore if DSB or SSB system could be exchanged to FM system, 640
fold transmission power savings could be achieved. Note, however that
the required transmission bandwidth is now about 220 kHz /15 kHz = 15
times larger! Also, a problem is the FM threshold effect that we discuss
in the next slides.
39
 FM-Threshold Effect
Until now: large signal level. Now, let’s focus on small signal condition:
Ac << An(t). Then the phase at detector input is:
Therefore in the case (S/N)R <<1, the noise dominates and the message
contained in φ(t) can not be recovered.
In the case of (S/N)R ≈1:
40
Even small noise variations may then produce large spikes to the
demodulated FM signal.
In the case of tone modulation, the total output noise becomes:
The second term is the contribution of the spikes.
The above ND equation is described in the Figure in next slide with two
values of deviation ratio D. The sudden drop-off of these curves is the FM
threshold effect. Below threshold, noise captures the output signal (also
called noise multilation).
41
FM noise performance without pre-emphasis:
42
Therefore, when the system is operating near the threshold level, small
variations of signal powers may cause significant changes in the output
signal.
Experimental studies show that typical threshold level for pre-detection

SNR is (S/N)R ≈ 10 dB. Therefore, we define the threshold point as:
The corresponding threshold for baseband SNR is therefore:
Since . Here, we used BT ≈ 2(D+2)W.
Note: The threshold point and threshold for baseband SNR also apply to
PM with D replaced by φ∆.
43
Example of threshold point for FM:
FM performance above threshold
is impressive (improved when
increasing D, FM performance is
better than baseband transmission
having (S/N)D = γ).
Now, considering γ fixed (e.g. 20 dB).
When D = 2 (BT ≈ 7W), we are above
threshold and (S/N)D = 28 dB. But,
when increasing D (e.g. D = 5, then
BT ≈ 14W), we are below threshold,
and the signal can not be recovered
due to noise multilation. The system
performance may deteriorate with
increased deviation.
44
Comparison of CW-Modulation Systems (1)
45
 Suppressed carrier methods are superior to conventional AM due to: better
SNRs and no threshold effect.
 When bandwidth conservation is important ⇒ SSB and VSB are the best.
 However, efficient linear modulators/demodulators are difficult to

implement.
 Synchronous detection is much more complex than envelope detection.

However, there is no threshold effect for synchronous detection. Threshold
effect in linear modulations is associated with envelope detection.
 Exponential CW modulation can increase the post-detection SNR

substantially, with only moderate complex implementation.
 The signals with significant low-frequency components are best modulated

with DSB or VSB modulation methods.
46
 CW modulation systems including 12dB pre-emphasis improvement for
FM (performance below threshold
is omitted):
• For PM: b is limited to 10

(due to phase deviation
limitation)
• For FM: b is unlimited
(as long as the system
above threshold)
• Note: For equal b, FM is
superior to PM.
47
 FM/PM signals require more bandwidth than linear modulation methods.
 In FM/PM cases it is possible to use efficient amplifiers (e.g. class C),

while for AM/DSB/SSB we need highly linear amplifiers (classes A or
AB), which are more expensive.
48

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Noise in Analog Modulation

Assoc Prof. Dr. Ho Van Khuong

Noise analysis is an essential part of developing different communication

 The attenuation of the channel is L and the channel is distortionless (or

where n(t) is noise.

In the ideal case, the demodulated signal for different types of

The above formula assumes perfect carrier synchronization in

The term corresponds to the removal of the DC offset in the envelope

Here NR is the power of the noise at the input of the detector. It

S/N ratio before the detection is defined as:

This can be rewritten as:

This is actually an upper bound for S/N ratio. Nonlinearities in

Note that γ corresponds to the maximum S/N ratio in analog baseband

It can be expressed by using the in-phase and quadrature components:

The power spectral densities of quadrature components are:

The envelope An has the Rayleigh distribution:

with mean and mean square are given by

The phase φn has a uniform distribution over [0, 2π].

S/N ratio at the input of the detector:

Signal and noise at the input of the detector:

If the post-detection filter (LPF HD(f)) approximates an ideal LPF with

This is lowpass-filtered white noise.

the S/N ratio after the detection (post-detection SNR) is

Comment: post-detection SNR = 2× pre-detection SNR (for DSB).

For DSB, BT = 2W, thus the post-detection SNR is equal to the

Therefore, DSB modulation with ideal synchronous detection has the

If the synchronous detector removes the DC component, yD(t) has the

Then, the S/N ratio after the detection is

Because , then the post-detection SNR is at

Synchronous detection rejects the quadrature component of both signal

The S/N ratio after the detection is:

Thus, SSB has the same post-detection S/N ratio as DSB.

assuming that BT ≈ W and µ ≈ 1.

If modulating signal contains discontinuities, SSB is worse than DSB.

where we are still taking µ = 1.

From phasor diagram, we obtain:

(1) Large signal power:

The ideal envelope detector gives:

which is the same result as in the synchronous detection.

(2) Small signal power:

It is difficult to determine the threshold. One criterion is the level where

Note: synchronous detection does not suffer of threshold effect.

In either case, the carrier amplitude remains constant, so

This is often called the carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR). The pre-detection

Before detection, the limiter suppresses any amplitude variation

where is the quadrature component of noise. In this

If the out-of-band noise is removed by an ideal low-pass filter with

It can be proved that the FM post-detection noise power spectrum

If we incorporate de-emphasis filtering (i.e. a low pass filter

then the noise power will be

The post-detection filter passes the signal term φ∆x(t), so

From previous result for ND, then we obtain:

PM gives an improvement over DSB-modulation of exactly φ∆2Sx.

The post-detection filter passes the signal term f∆x(t), so

From previous result for ND, then we obtain:

For deviation ratio D = f∆ /W, we rewrite:

Therefore, exchage increased bandwidth for reduced transmitter

In the case of wideband FM (WBFM), , so

FM has better SNR than DSB when:

The de-emphasis improvement factor is

In the case of (S/N)R ≈1:

In the case of tone modulation, the total output noise becomes:

The second term is the contribution of the spikes.