Differential Pulse Code Modulation

(DPCM)
 In PCM we quantize the analog samples.
samples Since the signal
varies over a large range of amplitudes, we generally need a
large number of levels (an hence bits).
 Note
N t that
th t neighboring
i hb i samples l are “close”
“ l ” tot eachh other
th ini
values.
 If we instead quantize the difference between successive
samples, we will be dealing with much smaller range of
values.
 This will results in either:
 Using less number of bits for the same SNR.
 Obtaining smaller SNR for the same number of bits.
 Quantization noise will be reduced by a factor of (mp/md)2
Block Diagram of DPCM
d [ k ]  x [ k ]  x [ k  1].
1]

xˆ [k ]

xˆ [ k ]  d q [k ]  xˆ [ k  1]. xˆ [k  1]
Generalized DPCM
 We can get even a smaller range of values if we define the
difference as:
d [k ]  x[k ]  xˆ[k ]
xˆ (k ) can be predicted from previous values of x,
xˆ (k )  a1 x(k  1)  a2 x(k  2)  a3 x(k  3)  
 The more previous samples included, the better the
approximation, the smaller the difference.
 The
h relation
l i d k = x[k]-
d[k] k x[k-1]
k is i a special
i l case where
h the h
previous sample is taken as a prediction of the current value.
Higher order prediction
 DPCM conceptt can bbe extended
t d d tto iincorporate
t
more than one past sample value into the prediction
circuitry.
circuitry
 The additional redundancy available from all
previous samples can be weighted and summed to
produce a better estimate of the next input sample.
 With a better estimate,, the range
g of the prediction
p
error decreases to allow encoding with fewer bits.
 Third Order Prediction

 For systems with constant predictor coefficients,

results have shown that most realizable
improvement occurs when using last three sample
values
l
Delta Modulation (DM)
 If we increase the sampling rate (oversampling) much above the
Nyquist rate, the adjacent samples become very much correlated,
with a very small prediction error.
 The difference can then be encoded by one bit;
If x[k] > x[k-1]  dq [k] = 
If x[k] < x[k-1]  dq [k] = -

 k
xq [k ]   d [k ]; (assuming zero initial condition)
i 0
 The
h analog
l signal
i l is
i approximated
i d by
b a staircase
i function.
f i
 DM is simple to implement. Moreover, it does not require word
synchronization.
DM Illustration
DM Modulator and Demodulator

xˆq (t )

xˆq (t )
dq[k] LPF xˆ (t )

Accumulator (Integrator)
DM Encoder
DM Decoder
Noise in DM
Slope Overload
 Slope
Sl overload
l d occurs because
b

 To prevent Slope overload

Slope Overload
L
Lett us consider
id a sinusoid
i id representing
ti a
narrow band signal x(t) = amcos(2πft ) where ‘f’
represents the maximum frequency of the
signal and ‘am‘ its peak amplitude. There will
be no slope-overload error if

q fs ≥ 2πamf
SNR for DM
 Th
The quantization
ti ti error lies
li ini the ( ))
th range (-,
 Granular noise power = 2/3
 The noise is uniformly distributed in the band 0
to fs.
 The LPF will only pass (2/3)(B/fs) of noise
power.
 SNR = (3/2)(fs/B)Ps
Adpative Delta Modulation (ADM)
 DM suffers
ff ffrom granularl noise
i effect
ff t andd
slope overload effect.
 A remedyd iis applied
li d by
b varying
i the
h step size
i s.
 A granular noise is detected by a sequence of
alternating
l i pulses.
l
 A slope overload is identified by a sequence of
pulses of the same polarity.
ADM