Higher Colleges of Technology – Dubai

Dubai Men’s Campus

ELE 3203– Communication Systems
Lab 6: AM Single Side Band (SSB)

A. Objective:
The objectives of this exercise are:
 To examine a message signal, a carrier signal and an AM Single Side Band (SSB) modulated
waveform in time domain.
 To examine a message signal, a carrier signal and an AM Single Side Band (SSB) modulated
waveform in frequency domain.

B. Introduction:

1. AM modulation efficiency
The main drawbacks of AM modulation is that most of the transmitted AM signal power is concentrated in the
carrier sinewave that does not carry any actual information. In the best-case scenario, i.e., modulation index
=1, the efficiency is 33%. This means that only 33% of the transmitted signal power is actually reserved for the
two sidebands carrying information. In Lab 5, we saw that suppressing the carrier sinewave in (DSBSC) allows
an important power saving by dedicating the whole power of the transmitter to the sidebands of the AM. The
efficiency of the AM modulation can be improved further by transmitting only one sideband. Actually, the two
sidebands carry the same information and only one is sufficient to recover the audio signal. Moreover,
transmitting only one sideband also the efficiency in terms of bandwidth usage: only half of the DSB bandwidth
is used. This type of amplitude modulation is called Single Sideband (SSB) AM.
2. Single Sideband Amplitude Modulation (SSB AM)
The SSB Amplitude Modulation of the carrier signal

by the message signal m(t)= Am cos ( ω m t ) is shown in Fig. 1. The SSB Amplitude Modulation can be obtained
by filtering the DSBSC Amplitude Modulation signal to eliminate one of the sidebands. The other method is to
use two DSBSCs with appropriate phase shifts as shown in Fig. 2. The shift is 90o.

d)
Frequency
spectrum

The
amplitude
spectrum of
the following
signal m(t) Figure 2: SSB (AM) generation
Figure 1: SSB (AM) generation
m ( t )=m1 cos ( ωm t ) + m2 cos ( ωm t ) + m3 cos ( ωm t )
1 2 3

and the corresponding SSB AM signal are shown in Figure 1.

Lab 6: SSB AMPLITUDE MODULATION

 Higher Colleges of Technology – Dubai
Dubai Men’s Campus
ELE 3203– Communication Systems
Lab 6: AM Single Side Band (SSB)
Figure 1 : Amplitude of spectral components of SSB AM signal (Lower SideBand)
AM lower
modulation sideband
m2Ac
m1Ac m3Ac m2Ac/2
m3Ac/2 m1Ac/2
f
0 f1 f2 f3 fc-f2 fc
fc-f3 fc-f1

Note the difference with DSB AM. The absence of the carrier sinewave and one of the sidebands in the SSB
AM spectrum.

If the frequency range of the message signal is from 0 to f3, then, the bandwidth of the message signal,
BW m(t )=f 3. The corresponding SSB AM modulated signal will occupy a frequency range from f c −f 3 and the
bandwidth of the corresponding AM modulated signal is given by:
BW m(t )=(f ¿¿ c )−( f ¿ ¿ c−f 3)=BW m (t) ¿ ¿.
C. Equipment / Components / Resources :
i) Multisim

D. Procedure:
D1. Message Signal, Carrier Signal, and DSBSC Signal
i) Use MultiSim to build a model for SSB AM modulator base on block diagram below.

ii) Choose the carrier frequency to be 10 KHz and the message frequency to be 0.5 kHz. Choose the
amplitude of the carrier to be Ac=10V. Set the amplitude of the information signal to be Am=6V.

Lab 6: SSB AMPLITUDE MODULATION

 Higher Colleges of Technology – Dubai
Dubai Men’s Campus
ELE 3203– Communication Systems
Lab 6: AM Single Side Band (SSB)

iii) Capture the SSB AM modulated signal using an oscilloscope (Channel A).
iv) Connect the message signal to (Channel B) of the oscilloscope and use dual mode to visualize both
AM and message signals. Compare the envelope of the AM signal to the message signal.
D2. Frequency Spectrum
i) Connect the AM signal to a spectrum Analyzer.
ii) Set the span to 2kHz, the central frequency to 10kHz (same as the carrier), the start frequency to 9kHz
and the end frequency to 11kHz.
iii) Capture the spectrum of the AM signal.

iv) Vary the amplitude of the massage and observe the variation on the spectrum.

Lab 6: SSB AMPLITUDE MODULATION

 Higher Colleges of Technology – Dubai
Dubai Men’s Campus
ELE 3203– Communication Systems
Lab 6: AM Single Side Band (SSB)

E . Conclusion Questions:
1. Describe the characteristics of the message signal, the carrier signal and the SSB AM modulated signal
you have used in the experiment. Hint: Take pictures of the signals you observe during the experiment to
illustrate your description.

Because message signals have a limited frequency and bandwidth, they can only travel short distances.
conveys a signal with a high frequency, is used for modulation, and includes no information
AM modulated signals have a great range and a high frequency, and they include information in their side
bands.

2. Compare the amplitude spectra obtained from measurements with theoretical amplitude spectra. Comment
on the differences. Where the total power is concentrated?

According to what we learned as theory amplitude spectra and what we discovered it was comparable they
work on the notion of signal modulation being between 0% and 100% because if it surpasses 100% it will
have distortion signal.

Lab 6: SSB AMPLITUDE MODULATION

 Higher Colleges of Technology – Dubai
Dubai Men’s Campus
ELE 3203– Communication Systems
Lab 6: AM Single Side Band (SSB)
3. Summarize your learning from section D.

We learnt how to create an AM single-sided band signal and show its output on an oscilloscope as well as in a
spectrum analyzer. We also learnt how to obtain a reading from them ( frequency and time domains)

Lab 6: SSB AMPLITUDE MODULATION