Pulse Time Modulation:

Pulse Width Modulation & Pulse Position Modulation

Pulse Time Modulation (PTM) is a class of signaling technique that encodes the sample
values of an analog signal onto the time axis of a digital signal.
In pulse modulation systems, the carrier is a train of pulses rather than a continuous
signal. The parameters of the pulses are varied according to the instantaneous value of the
modulating signal. The carrier is a train of pulses rather than a continuous signal. In
PTM, the timing of the pulses of the carrier is varied in accordance with modulating
signal.
In Pulse time modulation (PTM), amplitude of the carrier is kept constant and the
Position or width of the carrier varies with the amplitude of the modulating signal at the
time of sampling. Pulse width modulation and pulse position modulation are the types of
Pulse Time Modulation.
As there is no variation in the amplitude of the carrier, the noise may be easily removed
at the receiver with the help of Limiter. The amplitude limiters will clip off the portion of
the signal corrupted by noise and hence provide a good degree of noise immunity.
The two main types of pulse time modulation are:
1. Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
2. Pulse Position Modulation (PPM)
In PAM, Bandwidth is very large as compared to modulating signal frequency. In PAM, the
amplitude of the rectangular pulse train is varied according to the instantaneous value of the
modulating signal. Due to this, the required power for transmission is also varied. Due to varying
amplitude of carrier, the interference of noise is very high in PAM. So it is difficult to remove
noise at receiver.
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) :
In PWM the sample values of the analog waveform are used to determine the width of the
pulse signal. Either instantaneous or natural sampling can be used.This is also known as
Pulse Duration modulation.
There are three types of width variations in Pulse Width Modulation. In one of the variations,
leading edge of the pulse is kept constant and pulse width is measured with respect to leading
edge. In second type, tail edge of the pulse is kept constant and pulse width is measured with
respect to it. And the third type has a constant centre of the pulse and the pulse width change on
both the sides of the centre of the pulse.This has been illustrated in fiqure 3. In this modulating
signal is at its positive peak at point A and at its negative peak at B.
In Fiqure (a) the leading edge of pulse is kept constant and pulse width is measured from the lead
edge.Fiqure (b) the tail edge of the pulse is constant and in fiqure (c) the centre of the pulse is

kept constant
Frequency Spectrum for PWM wave

With a sinusoidal modulating signal at frequency fm, the spectrum of PWM signal consists the
modulating signal frequency fm along with several harmonics, as shown in fiqure.

Note: to have a better separation with respect to frequency between highest frequency of
baseband signal and lower sideband of fs ( sampling frequency).
A higher sampling frequency which is more than Nyquist rate is used and pulse width deviation
is kept small.

PWM Modulator or PWM Generation

Fiqure show PWM Modulator in which the message signal which is Analog in nature is first
given to PAM Generator. Output of PAM is added in summer with a another signal which is
generated by a triangle function generator.
As shown in fiqure Both PAM generator and triangle function generator are synchronized with
same clock frequency which is the sampling frequency.The output of summer is put into a open
loop OP-AMP which is used as a Comparator. Inverting input terminal of opamp is connected to
a reference voltage Vr. And the output of summer is fed to Non-Inverting terminal of OP_AMP.

The output of comparator is positive or high only when signal across positive terminal is larger
than the reference level as shown in fiqure. When the reference level become high in
comparision with positive terminal voltage then output of comparator become negative or zero.
Demodulation of PWM signal
Fiqure shows the block diagram of PWM detector. As shown in fiqure the received PWM signal
is applied to the schmitt trigger circuit. This schmitt trigger circuit removes the noise in the
PWM waveform. The regeneated PWM is then applied to the ramp generator and the
synchronization pulse detector.
The ramp generator produces ramps for the duration of pulses such that height of ramps are
proportional to the widths of PWM pulses.the maximum ramp voltage is retained till the next
pulse.

On the other hand, synchronous pulse detector produces reference pulses with constant amplitue
and pulse width. These pulses are delayed by specific amount of delay as shown in fiqure.
The delayed reference pulses and the output of ramp generator is added with the help of adder.
The output of adder is given to level shifter as shown in fiqure.here negative offset shifts the
waveform. Then the negative part of the waveform is clipped by rectifier.
Finally the output of rectifier is passed through low pass filter to recover the modulating signal as
shown in fiqure.

Advantage of PWM

1) Unlike PAM, noise is less, since in PWM amplitude is held constant.

2) Signal and noise separation is very easy
3) PWM communication does not require synchronization between transmitter and receiver.

Disadvantage of PWM

1) In PWM pulses are varying in width and therefore their power contents are variable. This
requires that the transmitter must be able to handle the power contents of the pulse having
maximum pulse width.
2) Large bandwidth is required for the PWM communication as compared to PAM.
Pulse Position Modulation (PPM)
In PPM the analog sample values determine the position of a narrow pulse relative to the
clocking time. It is possible to obtain PPM from PWM by using a mono-stable multivibrator
circuit.
In Pulse Position Modulation, the position of the pulse of the carrier is varied with reference to
the position of a reference pulse. The position is varied in accordance with the sampled
modulating signal.
In this system the amplitude and width of the pulses are kept constant, while the position of each
pulse with reference to the position of a reference pulse is changed according to the
instantaneous sampled value of the modulating signal. Thus the transmitter has to send
synchronizing pulses to keep the transmitter and receiver in syndhronism. As the amplitude and
width of the pulses are constant, the transmitter handles constant power output which is one of
the advantages of PPM.
PPM Modulator or Generation of PPM Signal.

Fiqure shows PPM generator. The output of comparator which is PWM signal is fed to
Monostable multivibrator.As shown in the fiqure PWM signal act as a triggering input signal to
monostable multivibrator.
The monostable multivibrator then generates the pulses of same width and amplitude with
reference to trigger input as shown in fiqure.
Demodulation of PPM

In case of pulse position modulation it is necessary to convert the received pulses that vary in
position to pulses that vary in length. One way to achieve this is illustrated in fiqure.

As shown in fiqure flip flop circuit is set or turned ON when the reference pulse arrives. This
reference pulse is generated by reference pulse generator of the receiver with the synchronization
signal from the transmitter. The flip flop circuit is reset or turned OFF at the leading edge of the
position modulated pulse. This process repeats and we get PWM pulses at the output of the flip
flop. The PWM pulses are then demodulated by PWM demodulator to get original modulating
signal.

Advantage of PPM

1) In PPM amplitude is held constant thus less noise interference.

2) Like PWM signal and noise separation is very easy.
3) Because of constant pulses widths and amplitudes, transmission power for each pulse is
same.

Disadvantage of PPM

1) Synchronization between transmitter and receiver is required.

2) Large bandwidth is required as compared to PAM.