Pulse Modulation

Hệ thống viễn thông

(Communication Systems)
Do Duy Tan, Ph.D.
tandd@hcmute.edu.vn
 Outline
• Sampling
• Điều chế xung tương tự (4.5 [1])
(Analog Pulse Modulation)
• Pulse-Width Mod (PWM)
• Pulse-Position Mod (PPM)
• Điều chế xung số (3.8 [1])
(Digital Pulse Modulation)
• Delta Modulation
• Pulse-Code Modulation
• Time-Division Multiplexing
• An Example: the Digital Telephone System

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 2

3
 Sampling
• Sampling a signal: Analog → Digital conversion by
reading the value at discrete points

• A process of taking samples of information signal at a rate of

Nyquist’s sampling frequency.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 4

• Nyquist’s Sampling Theorem
The original information signal can be reconstructed at the receiver
with minimal distortion if the sampling rate in the pulse modulation
system equal to or greater than twice the maximum information
signal frequency.

fs >= 2fm (max)

• infinite bandwidth cannot be sampled

• the sampling rate must be at least 2 times
the highest frequency, not the bandwidth.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 5

 Undersampling & Oversampling
• Undersampling is essentially sampling too slowly, or
sampling at a rate below the Nyquist frequency for a
particular signal of interest. Undersampling leads to aliasing
and the original signal cannot be properly reconstructed
• Oversampling is sampling at a rate beyond twice the highest
frequency component of interest in the signal and is usually
desired.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 6

 Aliasing effect
If the required condition of the
sampling theorem that fs >= 2fmmax is
not met, then errors will occur in the
reconstruction.

When such errors arise due to

undersampling, aliasing is said to
occur

Undersampling: Sampling rate is too

low to capture high-frequency
variation

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 7

 Recovery of a sampled sine wave for different sampling rates

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 8

 Natural Sampling

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 9

 Analog Pulse Modulation
• Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)
• Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM)
• Pulse-Position Modulation (PPM)

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 10

 Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)
• The amplitude of pulses is
varied in accordance with
the information signal.
• Width & position constant.
• 2 types
• double polarity
• single polarity

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 11

 Natural Sampling (PAM)
• A PAM signal is generated by using a pulse train, called the
sampling signal (or clock signal) to operate an electronic
switch or "chopper". This produces samples of the analog
message signal, as shown in Figure

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 12

 Flat Top Sampling (PAM)
• a sample-and-hold circuit is used in conjunction with the
chopper to hold the amplitude of each pulse at a constant
level during the sampling time

Flat-top sampling – generation of PAM signals.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 13
• Pulse duration (τ) supposed to be very small compare to the period, Ts
between 2 samples
• Lets max frequency of the signal, W Fs >= 2 W
Ts =< 1/2W
T « Ts =< 1/2W
1
• If ON/OFF time of the pulse is same, frequency of the PAM pulse is f max 
2
• Bandwidth required for transmitter of PAM signal will be equal to
maximum frequency
BT  f max
1

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019
2 14
 Advantages & Disadvantages PAM
• Advantage:
• it allows multiplexing, i.e., the sharing of the same transmission
media by different sources (or users). This is because a PAM signal
only occurs in slots of time, leaving the idle time for the
transmission of other PAM signals.
• Disadvantage:
• require a larger transmission bandwidth (very large compare to its
maximum frequency)
• Interference of noise is maximum
• Needed for varies transmission power

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 15

 Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM)
• Sometimes called Pulse Duration Modulation/ Pulse Width
Duration (PWM)
• The width of pulses is varied in accordance to information
signal
• Amplitude & position constant
• PWM is used in a great number of applications communications
• The width of the transmitted pulse corresponds to the encoded
data value

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 16

• Immune to noise
• Power Delivery
• Reduce the total amount of power delivered to a load
• Applications: DC Motors, Light Dimmers, Anti-Lock Breaking
System

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 17

• PWM signal output is generated by comparing
summation result with reference level

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 18

 Advantages & Disadvantages PWM
• Advantage:
• Noise performance is better compare to PAM.

• Disadvantages:
• require a larger power transmission compare to PPM
• Require very large bandwidth compare to PAM

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 19

 Pulse-Position Modulation (PPM)
• Modulation in which the temporal positions of the pulses are varied
in accordance with some characteristic of the information signal.
• Amplitude & width constant.
• The higher the amplitude of the sample, the farther to the right the
pulse is position within the prescribed time slot.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 20

 Transmission BW of PPM Signal
• PPM and PDM need a sharp rise time and fall time for pulses in order
to preserve the message information.
• Let rise time, 𝑡𝑟
tr« Ts
1
BT 
2t r
• From formula above, we know that transmission BW of PPM and
PDM is higher than PAM

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 21

 Advantages & Disadvantages PPM
• Advantage:
• The amplitude is held constant thus less noise interference.
• Signal and noise separation is very easy
• Due to constant pulse widths and amplitudes, transmission power
for each pulse is same.
• Require less power compare to PAM and PDM because of short
duration pulses.

• Disadvantages:
• Require very large bandwidth compare to PAM.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 22

 Example 1
• For PAM transmission of voice signal with W = 3kHz.
Calculate BT if fs = 8 kHz and τ = 0.1 Ts

• Solution
1
1 1  
Ts    1.25 x10  4 s 2W
f s 8kHz
1
  0.1Ts  1.25 x10 5 s BT   W
2
1
BT   40kHz
2

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 23

 Example 2
• For the same information as in example 1, find minimum
transmission BW needed for PPM and PDM. Given tr= 1% of
the width of the pulse.

• Solution
1
tr    1.25 x10 7 s
100
1
BT 
2t r
BT  4 MHz

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 24

 PAM PWM PPM
Relation with Amplitude of the Width of the pulse Relative position
modulating signal pulse is is proportional to of the pulse is
proportional to amplitude of proportional to
amplitude of modulating signal amplitude of
modulating signal modulating signal
BW of the depends on width Depends of rise Depends on rising
transmission of the pulse time of the pulse time of the pulse
channel
Instantaneous varies varies Remains constant
power
Noise interference High Minimum Minimum

Complexity of the Complex Simple simple

system
Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 25
 Advantages & Drawbacks of Pulse Modulation
• Advantages
• Noise immunity.
• Relatively low cost digital circuitry.
• Able to be time division multiplexed with other pulse modulated
signal.
• Storage of digital streams.
• Error detection & correction
• Drawbacks
• Requires greater BW to transmit & receive as compared to its
analog counterpart.
• Special encoding & decoding methods must be used to increased
transmission rates & more difficult to be recovered.
• Requires precise synchronization of clocks between Tx & Rx.
Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 26
 Digital Pulse Modulation
• Digital signals are very easy to receive. The receiver has to just
detect whether the pulse is low or high
• AM & FM signals become corrupted over much short distances
as compared to digital signals. In digital signals, the original
signal can be reproduced accurately
• The signals lose power as they travel, which is called attenuation.
When AM and FM signals are amplified, the noise also get
amplified. But the digital signals can be cleaned up to restore the
quality and amplified by the regenerators
• The noise may change the shape of the pulses but not the
pattern of the pulses.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 27

• AM and FM signals can be received by any one by suitable receiver.
But digital signals can be coded so that only the person, who is
intended for, can receive them. [SECURITY]
• AM and FM transmitters are ‘real time systems’. i.e. they can be
received only at the time of transmission. But digital signals can be
stored at the receiving end. [DIGITAL DATA]
• The digital signals can be stored.
• The process of Sampling which we have already discussed in initial
slides is also adopted in Digital pulse modulation.
• It is mainly of two types:
• Pulse Code Modulation(PCM)
• Delta Modulation(DM)

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 28

 Delta Modulation
• In Delta Modulation, only one bit is transmitted per sample
• That bit is a one if the current sample is more positive than the previous
sample, and a zero if it is more negative
• Since so little information is transmitted, delta modulation requires higher
sampling rates than PCM for equal quality of reproduction
• This scheme sends only the difference between pulses, if the pulse at time
tn+1 is higher in amplitude value than the pulse at time tn, then a single
bit, say a “1”, is used to indicate the positive value.
• If the pulse is lower in value, resulting in a negative value, a “0” is used.
This scheme works well for small changes in signal values between
samples.
• If changes in amplitude are large, this will result in large errors.
Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 29
The process of Delta Modulation

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 30

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 31
 Delta Modulation

DM system. (a) Transmitter. (b) Receiver.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 32
• Distortions in DM system
• If the slope of analog signal is much higher than that of
approximated digital signal over long duration, than this
difference is called Slope overload distortion.
• The difference between quantized signal and original
signal is called as Granular noise. It is similar to
quantisation noise.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 33

 Two types of quantization errors :
Slope overload distortion and granular noise
Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 34
 Distortions in Delta Modulation system
• Granular noise occurs when step size▲ is large relative to local
slope m(t).
• There is a further modification in this system, in which step size
is not fixed.
• That scheme is known as Adaptive Delta Modulation.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 35

 Pulse-Code Modulation (PCM)
 Pulse-Code Modulation (PCM) is the most commonly used digital
modulation scheme
 In PCM, the available range of signal voltages is divided into levels
and each is assigned a binary number
 Each sample is represented by a binary number and transmitted
serially
 The number of levels available depends upon the number of bits
used to express the sample value
 The number of levels is given by: N = 2m

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 36

 PCM consists of three steps to digitize an analog signal:
1. Sampling
2. Quantization
3. Binary encoding
 Before we sample, we have to filter the signal to limit the
maximum frequency of the signal .Filtering should ensure
that we do not distort the signal, i.e. remove high frequency
components that affect the signal shape.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 37

 The basic elements of a PCM system

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 38

• Analog to digital converter employs two techniques:
1. Sampling: The process of generating pulses of zero width and of
amplitude equal to the instantaneous amplitude of the analog signal.
The no. of pulses per second is called “sampling rate”.
2. Quantization: The process of dividing the maximum value of the
analog signal into a fixed no. of levels in order to convert the PAM into
a Binary Code.
The levels obtained are called “quantization levels”.

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 39

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 40
 Quantization

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 41

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 42
 Quantization Noise

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 43

 Bandwidth of PCM
• Assume 𝑞 = 2𝑛 quantization levels, then 𝑛 = 𝑙𝑜𝑔2 𝑞 binary
pulses (~bits) for each sample
• If the signal has bandwidth W and the sampling rate is 2W
• Hence, 2Wxn binary pulses are transmitted per second
• Maximum width of each binary pulse (~bit)

• The required BW of the PCM system

(k: a constant of proportionality)

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 44

 Time-Division Multiplexing

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 45

 An Example: the Digital
Telephone System

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 46

 Self-study Contents
• Nhiễu lượng tử
• Kỹ thuật nén dãn trong hệ thống PCM

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 47

 Textbooks/References
[1] R.E. Ziemer and W.H. Tranter, Principles of communications: systems,
modulation, and noise, 6th ed. Wiley, 2009.
[2] Taub Schilling, Principles of communication systems, 2nd ed., Mc Graw Hill,
1999.
[3] Simon Haykin and Michael Moher, Communication Systems, 5th ed., Wiley,
March 2000.
[4] Proakis and Salehi, Fundamentals of communication systems, 2nd ed., Pearson,
2013.
[5] A. B. Carlson, Communication Systems, 3rd ed., McGraw-Hill, 2002.
[6] A. Goldsmith, Wireless Communications, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
[7] R. L. Freeman, Fundamentals of Telecommunications, 2nd ed., Wiley, 2005
[8] Theodore Rappaport, Wireless Communications: Principles And Practice, 2nd
ed., Prentice Hall, 2002

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 48

 Exercises
• Textbook [1] (version 7, Chapter 3.8)
PROBLEMS (not DRILL PROBLEMS)

• 3.25, 3.26, 3.30

Do Duy Tan 10/3/2019 49