Modulation

The most fundamental digital modulation techniques are based on keying:

• PSK (phase-shift keying): a finite number of phases are used.
• FSK (frequency-shift keying): a finite number of frequencies are used.
• ASK (amplitude-shift keying): a finite number of amplitudes are used.
• QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation): a finite number of at least two phases and at least two amplitudes are used.

In QAM, an in-phase signal (or I, with one example being a cosine waveform) and a quadrature phase signal (or Q, with an example being a sine wave) are amplitude modulated with a finite number of amplitudes and then summed. It can be seen as a two-channel system, each channel using ASK. The resulting signal is equivalent to a combination of PSK and ASK.

In all of the above methods, each of these phases, frequencies or amplitudes are assigned a unique pattern of binary bits. Usually, each phase, frequency or amplitude encodes an equal number of bits. This number of bits comprises the symbol that is represented by the particular phase, frequency or amplitude.

If the alphabet consists of ${\displaystyle M=2^{N}}$ alternative symbols, each symbol represents a message consisting of N bits. If the symbol rate (also known as the baud rate) is ${\displaystyle f_{S}}$ symbols/second (or baud), the data rate is ${\displaystyle Nf_{S}}$ bit/second.

For example, with an alphabet consisting of 16 alternative symbols, each symbol represents 4 bits. Thus, the data rate is four times the baud rate.

In the case of PSK, ASK or QAM, where the carrier frequency of the modulated signal is constant, the modulation alphabet is often conveniently represented on a constellation diagram, showing the amplitude of the I signal at the x-axis, and the amplitude of the Q signal at the y-axis, for each symbol.

PSK and ASK, and sometimes also FSK, are often generated and detected using the principle of QAM. The I and Q signals can be combined into a complex-valued signal I+jQ (where j is the imaginary unit). The resulting so called equivalent lowpass signal or equivalent baseband signal is a complex-valued representation of the real-valued modulated physical signal (the so-called passband signal or RF signal).

These are the general steps used by the modulator to transmit data:

1. Group the incoming data bits into codewords, one for each symbol that will be transmitted.
2. Map the codewords to attributes, for example, amplitudes of the I and Q signals (the equivalent low pass signal), or frequency or phase values.
3. Adapt pulse shaping or some other filtering to limit the bandwidth and form the spectrum of the equivalent low pass signal, typically using digital signal processing.
4. Perform digital to analog conversion (DAC) of the I and Q signals (since today all of the above is normally achieved using digital signal processing, DSP).
5. Generate a high-frequency sine carrier waveform, and perhaps also a cosine quadrature component. Carry out the modulation, for example by multiplying the sine and cosine waveform with the I and Q signals, resulting in the equivalent low pass signal being frequency shifted to the modulated passband signal or RF signal. Sometimes this is achieved using DSP technology, for example direct digital synthesis using a waveform table, instead of analog signal processing. In that case, the above DAC step should be done after this step.
6. Amplification and analog bandpass filtering to avoid harmonic distortion and periodic spectrum.

At the receiver side, the demodulator typically performs:

1. Bandpass filtering.
2. Automatic gain control, AGC (to compensate for attenuation, for example fading).
3. Frequency shifting of the RF signal to the equivalent baseband I and Q signals, or to an intermediate frequency (IF) signal, by multiplying the RF signal with a local oscillator sine wave and cosine wave frequency (see the superheterodyne receiver principle).
4. Sampling and analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) (sometimes before or instead of the above point, for example by means of undersampling).
5. Equalization filtering, for example, a matched filter, compensation for multipath propagation, time spreading, phase distortion and frequency selective fading, to avoid intersymbol interference and symbol distortion.
6. Detection of the amplitudes of the I and Q signals, or the frequency or phase of the IF signal.
7. Quantization of the amplitudes, frequencies or phases to the nearest allowed symbol values.
8. Mapping of the quantized amplitudes, frequencies or phases to codewords (bit groups).
9. Parallel-to-serial conversion of the codewords into a bit stream.
10. Pass the resultant bit stream on for further processing such as removal of any error-correcting codes.

As is common to all digital communication systems, the design of both the modulator and demodulator must be done simultaneously. Digital modulation schemes are possible because the transmitter-receiver pair has prior knowledge of how data is encoded and represented in the communications system. In all digital communication systems, both the modulator at the transmitter and the demodulator at the receiver are structured so that they perform inverse operations.

Asynchronous methods do not require a receiver reference clock signal that is phase synchronized with the sender carrier signal. In this case, modulation symbols (rather than bits, characters, or data packets) are asynchronously transferred. The opposite is synchronous modulation.

The most common digital modulation techniques are:

• Phase-shift keying (PSK)
  • Binary PSK (BPSK), using M=2 symbols
  • Quadrature PSK (QPSK), using M=4 symbols
  • 8PSK, using M=8 symbols
  • 16PSK, using M=16 symbols
  • Differential PSK (DPSK)
  • Differential QPSK (DQPSK)
  • Offset QPSK (OQPSK)
  • π/4–QPSK
• Frequency-shift keying (FSK)
  • Audio frequency-shift keying (AFSK)
  • Multi-frequency shift keying (M-ary FSK or MFSK)
  • Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF)
• Amplitude-shift keying (ASK)
• On-off keying (OOK), the most common ASK form
  • M-ary vestigial sideband modulation, for example 8VSB
• Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), a combination of PSK and ASK
  • Polar modulation like QAM a combination of PSK and ASK
• Continuous phase modulation (CPM) methods
  • Minimum-shift keying (MSK)
  • Gaussian minimum-shift keying (GMSK)
  • Continuous-phase frequency-shift keying (CPFSK)
• Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation
  • Discrete multitone (DMT), including adaptive modulation and bit-loading
• Wavelet modulation
• Trellis coded modulation (TCM), also known as Trellis modulation
• Spread spectrum techniques
  • Direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)
  • Chirp spread spectrum (CSS) according to IEEE 802.15.4a CSS uses pseudo-stochastic coding
  • Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) applies a special scheme for channel release

MSK and GMSK are particular cases of continuous phase modulation. Indeed, MSK is a particular case of the sub-family of CPM known as continuous-phase frequency-shift keying (CPFSK) which is defined by a rectangular frequency pulse (i.e. a linearly increasing phase pulse) of one-symbol-time duration (total response signaling).

OFDM is based on the idea of frequency-division multiplexing (FDM), but the multiplexed streams are all parts of a single original stream. The bit stream is split into several parallel data streams, each transferred over its own sub-carrier using some conventional digital modulation scheme. The modulated sub-carriers are summed to form an OFDM signal. This dividing and recombining help with handling channel impairments. OFDM is considered as a modulation technique rather than a multiplex technique since it transfers one bit stream over one communication channel using one sequence of so-called OFDM symbols. OFDM can be extended to multi-user channel access method in the orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) and multi-carrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) schemes, allowing several users to share the same physical medium by giving different sub-carriers or spreading codes to different users.

Of the two kinds of RF power amplifier, switching amplifiers (Class D amplifiers) cost less and use less battery power than linear amplifiers of the same output power. However, they only work with relatively constant-amplitude-modulation signals such as angle modulation (FSK or PSK) and CDMA, but not with QAM and OFDM. Nevertheless, even though switching amplifiers are completely unsuitable for normal QAM constellations, often the QAM modulation principle are used to drive switching amplifiers with these FM and other waveforms, and sometimes QAM demodulators are used to receive the signals put out by these switching amplifiers.

Automatic digital modulation recognition in intelligent communication systems is one of the most important issues in software-defined radio and cognitive radio. According to incremental expanse of intelligent receivers, automatic modulation recognition becomes a challenging topic in telecommunication systems and computer engineering. Such systems have many civil and military applications. Moreover, blind recognition of modulation type is an important problem in commercial systems, especially in software-defined radio. Usually in such systems, there are some extra information for system configuration, but considering blind approaches in intelligent receivers, we can reduce information overload and increase transmission performance. Obviously, with no knowledge of the transmitted data and many unknown parameters at the receiver, such as the signal power, carrier frequency and phase offsets, timing information, etc., blind identification of the modulation is made fairly difficult. This becomes even more challenging in real-world scenarios with multipath fading, frequency-selective and time-varying channels.[2]

There are two main approaches to automatic modulation recognition. The first approach uses likelihood-based methods to assign an input signal to a proper class. Another recent approach is based on feature extraction.

Digital baseband modulation changes the characteristics of a baseband signal, i.e., one without a carrier at a higher frequency.

This can be used as equivalent signal to be later frequency-converted to a carrier frequency, or for direct communication in baseband. The latter methods both involve relatively simple line codes, as often used in local buses, and complicated baseband signalling schemes such as used in DSL.