UNIT II

DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
 INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL
COMMUNICATION
 Digital Modulation is defined as changing the
amplitude of the carrier signal with respect to
the binary information or digital signal.
 Bit rate is the number of bits transmitted
during one second between the transmitter and
receiver.
 Baud rate is the rate of information on
transmission medium after encoding and
modulation have occurred.
 Bandwidth efficiency is the ratio of the
transmission bit rate to the minimum bandwidth
required for a particular modulation
 INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL
COMMUNICATION
 Advantages of Digital communications
 It has a better noise immunity
 Repeaters can be used between transmitters
and receivers
 It becomes simpler and cheaper as compared
to the analog communication
 Disadvantages of Digital communications
 It requires a larger channel bandwidth
 Delta modulation needs synchronization
incase of synchronous modulation
AMPLITUDE SHIFT KEYING (ASK)
 ASK is a digital modulation technique defined as the process of
shifting the amplitude of the carrier signal between two levels,
depending on whether 1 or 0 is to be transmitted.
 By using ASK technique, digital data can be transmitted and by
varying only the amplitude factor the carrier wave.
 Also called OOK (On-off keying) modulation because the carrier
wave swings between 0 and 1 according to the low and high level
of input signal respectively.
 Simplest digital modulation technique.
  Scheme allows data transmission in case of low or medium data
rate rather than the high data rate
AMPLITUDE SHIFT KEYING (ASK)
 In ASK, frequency and phase of the carrier wave is kept
constant and only the amplitude is varied according to the
digitized modulating signal.
 Also referred as Binary Amplitude Shift Keying (BASK) as its
usual operation is associated with only two levels.
 In the figure given, represent the waveforms of amplitude
shift keying.
AMPLITUDE SHIFT KEYING (ASK)
.
AMPLITUDE SHIFT KEYING (ASK)
 Here, (i) figure represents a message signal represented in the
forms of the bitstream
 (ii) shows the carrier wave; whose amplitude is to be varied
according to the digital message signal.
 (iii) shows the resultant ASK waveform which is amplitude
modulated.
 It is clear from the figure that the signal is present only in case of
the high-level digital stream.
 No signal waveform is achieved when the bit shows a low level,
showing on and off behaviour.
 Thus, termed as ON-OFF keying
AMPLITUDE SHIFT KEYING (ASK)
 Let the message be binary sequence of 1's and 0's. It can be
represented as a function of time as follows:
vm = Vm , when symbol is 1
= 0, when symbol is 0…………(1)
 Let the carrier be
vc = Vc cos ωc t…………………(2)
Corresponding ASK signal is the product of vm and vc
vASK = Vm Vc cos ωc t, when symbol is 1
= 0, when symbol is 0
 When the binary symbol is 1, the ASK signal will have
information equal to the carrier multiplied by message
amplitude and when the binary symbol is 0, it will be zero.
 Thus the output shifts between two amplitude levels,
namely, Vm Vc and 0.Hence the name amplitude shift keying.
AMPLITUDE SHIFT KEYING (ASK)
 ASK modulator is essentially an analog multiplier that
takes baseband message vm and passband carrier vc, and
multiplies the two resulting in the product signal termed a
ASK.
 Block diagram for the generation of ASK signal
Spectrum of ASK signal
DEMODULATION OF ASK SIGNAL
 Demodulation is also termed as detection.
 Two ways in which the message can be demodulated
 1) coherent detection and
 2) non-coherent detection
 Due to the requirement of carrier in the receiver which is
in synchronism with that of the transmitter, the coherent
detection circuit is more complex compared to non-
coherent detector.
 However, the coherent detector provides better
performance under noisy condition
COHERENT DETECTION
 Carrier signal at the receiver end is in the same phase and

frequency as the replica carrier signal.

 The incoming ASK signal is multiplied with the carrier

signal. The output of the multiplier will be a low

frequency component representing amplitude scaled

version of baseband message and ASK signal at twice the

carrier frequency.

 The baseband message is retrieved by passing this signal

through a low pass filter.

 COHERENT DETECTION
Figure shows the block diagram of a coherent ASK detector.
NON-COHERENT DETECTION
 Incoming ASK signal is passed through an envelope
detector which tracks the envelope of the ASK signal.
 Envelope detector consists of rectifier and LPF
 The high frequency variations are further removed by
passing it through a this low pass filter.
 The output of the low pass filter may be further refined by
passing it through a comparator which compares the
output of the envelope detector
 Comparator compares the signal value with the preset
threshold value .
 Thus generates the equivalent output, which is the original
digital bit stream.
NON-COHERENT DETECTION
Figure shows the block diagram of a Non coherent ASK detector.
NON-COHERENT DETECTION
 The waveforms at various stages of the non-
coherent ASK detector are shown in Fig
below
 ASK-ADVANTAGE,
DISADVANTAGES, APPLICATIONS
Advantage
 Its generation and detection are easy thus facilitate simple
transmitter and receiver sections.
Disadvantages
 ASK technique is not suitable for high bit rate data transmission.
 Poor bandwidth efficiency.
 Highly susceptible to noise and other external factors.

Applications
 Digital data through an optical fiber is transmitted using ASK
technique.
 The technique was widely used in traditional telephone

modems.
Thus we can conclude that by using ASK technique, digital data
can be transmitted and by varying only the amplitude factor
the carrier wave
FREQUENCY SHIFT KEYING (FSK)
 FSK is a digital modulation technique defined as the process of
shifting the frequency of the carrier signal between two levels,
depending on whether 1 or 0 is to be transmitted.
 FSK is also known as Binary Frequency Shift Keying (BFSK).
 Let the message be binary sequence of 1's and 0's. It can be
represented as a function of time as follows:
vm = Vm ,when symbol is 1
= 0, when symbol is 0
 Let the two carriers be
vc1 = Vc cos ωc1 t
vc2 = Vc cos ωc2 t
 Corresponding FSK signal is
vFSK = Vm Vc cos ωc1 t, when symbol is 1
= Vm Vc cos ωc2 t, when symbol is 0
FREQUENCY SHIFT KEYING (FSK)
FREQUENCY SHIFT KEYING (FSK)
 Fig shows the time domain representation of the generation of
FSK signal. The digital message, i.e., binary sequence can be
represented as a message signal as shown in Fig(a)
 Two carrier signals of frequencies ωc1 and ωc2 as shown in Fig (b)
and (c).
 When binary symbol is 1, the FSK signal will have the carrier
signal with frequency ωc1
 When binary symbol is 0,the FSK signal will have the carrier signal
with frequency ωc2
 This can be achieved by using a suitable combinational logic
circuit 2X1 multiplexer used for this purpose which selects one of
the two carrier signals based on the input signal value applied at
its control input
 Thus the output of the multiplexer shifts between the two
distinct frequency values, namely,ωc1 and ωc2
 Hence,the name frequency shift keying.
FREQUENCY SHIFT KEYING (FSK)
 FSK modulator is essentially a 2X1 multiplexer, that
takes baseband message vm at the control input and
two carriers vc1 and vc2 at its input and produces FSK
signal at output.
FREQUENCY SHIFT KEYING (FSK)
Spectrum of FSK
DEMODULATION OF FSK SIGNAL
 Two ways in which the message can be
demodulated,
1) coherent detection and
2) non-coherent detection
COHERENT DETECTION
COHERENT DETECTION
 The incoming FSK signal is multiplied by the carrier signal with
frequency ωc1 in the upper channel and carrier signal with
frequency ωc2 in the lower channel
 The output of multiplier in upper channel is a low frequency
message
 The output of multiplier in lower channel is a high frequency
message
 The output of two multiplier passed to LPF
 The output of two channels passed to comparator
 The output of comparator will be high, if the upper channel
output is greater than lower channel output
 The output of comparator will be low, if the lower channel
output is greater than upper channel output
 The output of the comparator is proportional to message signal.
Hence the message is retrieved.
NON-COHERENT DETECTION
NON-COHERENT DETECTION
 The incoming FSK signal is passed through a filter tuned to ωc1
and then an envelope detector in upper channel
 The same FSK signal is passed through a filter tuned to ωc2 and
then an envelope detector in lower channel
 Thus the distinction between upper and lower channels is due to
this two filters.
 During the interval represented by a carrier signal with frequency
ωc1, output in upper channel will be high whereas lower channel
will be low.
 During the interval represented by a carrier signal with frequency
ωc2, output in upper channel will be low whereas lower channel
will be high.
 Outputs from upper amd lower channels envelope detectors are
applied to a comparator which produces output proportional to
the message.
NON-COHERENT DETECTION
 Figure shows signals at various
stages in non-coherent
detector
(a) message
(b) FSK signal
Output of envelope detector in
(c) upper channel
(d) lower channel
Output of LPF in
(e) upper channel
(f) lower channel
(g) Comparator output
 FSK-ADVANTAGE, DISADVANTAGES,
APPLICATIONS
Advantages
 Simple process to construct the circuit
 Zero amplitude variations
 Supports a high data rate.
 Low probability of error.
 High SNR
 More noise immunity than the ASK
 Error-free reception can be possible with FSK
Disadvantages
  It requires more bandwidth than the ASK and PSK(phase shift
keying)
 Due to the requirement of large bandwidth, this FSK has limitations
to use only in low-speed modems which the bit rate is 1200bits/sec.
FSK-ADVANTAGE,
DISADVANTAGES, APPLICATIONS
Applications
 Useful in high-frequency radio transmissions
 Preferable in high-frequency communications
 Low-speed digital applications
 PHASE SHIFT KEYING (PSK)
 PSK is a digital modulation technique defined as the process
of shifting the phase of the carrier signal between two
levels, depending on whether 1 or 0 is to be transmitted.
 Let the message be binary sequence of 1's and 0's. It can be
represented as a function of time as follows:
vm = Vm ,when symbol is 1
= 0, when symbol is 0
 Let the two carriers be
vc1 = Vc cos ωc t
vc2 = -Vc cos ωc t
 Corresponding PSK signal is
vPSK = Vm Vc cos ωc t, when symbol is 1
= -Vm Vc cos ωc t, when symbol is 0
PHASE SHIFT KEYING (PSK)
 Fig shows the time domain representation of the generation of
PSK signal. The digital message, i.e, binary sequence in Fig(a).
 Two carrier signals of opposite phases generated from an
oscillator and an inverter (180° phase shifter) are as shown in
Figs.(b) and (c).
 When the binary symbol is 0, the PSK signal will have the
original carrier signal.
 When the binary symbol is 1, the PSK signal will have the 180°
phase shifted carrier signal.
 This can be achieved by using a suitable combinational logic
circuit like 2 X 1 multiplexer
 Thus the output of the multiplexer shifts between the two
distinct phase values; namely, 0° and 180°. Hence the name
phase shift keying.
 A block diagram for the generation of PSK
signal can be written as given
DEMODULATION OF PSK SIGNAL
 Coherent detection
 The block diagram for the coherent detection of PSK in Fig.
 Incoming PSK signal is multiplied with the carrier signal with
phase shift 0° in the upper channel and carrier signal with phase
shift 180° in the lower channel.
 The output of the multiplier in the upper channel will be low
frequency message
 Thus the output of the low pass filter in the upper channel will
contain baseband message during intervals belonging to 0° phase
shift and its 180 phase shifted version during the intervals
belonging to the phase shift of 180°.
 Exactly opposite happens in the lower channel.
 The outputs of the two channels are further passed onto a
comparator. The output of the comparator will be high when
upper channel output is greater than the lower channel and low
when lower channel output is greater than the upper channel. In
this way the baseband message is retrieved from the PSK signal
PSK TYPES
 PSK is of three types, depending upon the
phases the signal gets shifted. They are −
1) Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK)
2) Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK)
3) 8-PSK
 1) BINARY PHASE SHIFT
KEYING (BPSK)
 Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) is a two
phase modulation scheme, where the 0's and
1's in a binary message are represented by two
different phase states in the carrier signal: for
binary 1 and for binary 0. 
 In this technique, the sine wave carrier takes
two phase reversals such as 0° and 180°.
 This is also called as 2-phase PSK or Phase
Reversal Keying.
BINARY PHASE SHIFT
KEYING (BPSK)
 The block diagram of BPSK
consists of the balance
modulator which has the
carrier sine wave as one input
and the binary sequence as
the other input. 
 Modulation of BPSK is done
using a balance modulator,
which multiplies the two
signals applied at the input.
 When 0 is binary input, the
phase will be 0° and when 1
is input, the phase reversal is
of 180°.
BINARY PHASE SHIFT
KEYING (BPSK)
BINARY PHASE SHIFT
KEYING (BPSK)
 The block diagram of BPSK
demodulator consists of a
mixer with local oscillator
circuit, a band pass filter,
a two-input detector
circuit. 
 By recovering the band-
limited message signal,
with the help of the mixer
circuit and the band pass
filter, the first stage of
demodulation gets
completed.
BINARY PHASE SHIFT
KEYING (BPSK)
 The base band signal which is band limited is obtained and
this signal is used to regenerate the binary message bit
stream.
 In the next stage of demodulation, the bit clock rate is
needed at the detector circuit to produce the original
binary message signal.
 If the bit rate is a sub-multiple of the carrier frequency,
then the bit clock regeneration is simplified. To make the
circuit easily understandable, a decision-making circuit
may also be inserted at the 2nd stage of detection.
 QUADRATURE PHASE SHIFT KEYING (QPSK)

 QPSK is type of  phase shift keying.

 QPSK is also a DSBSC modulation scheme but it sends two bits of
digital information a time (without the use of another carrier
frequency)
 The sine wave carrier takes four phase reversals such as 0°, 90°,
180°, and 270°
Advantages of QPSK
 Very good noise immunity
 Effective utilization of available bandwidth
 Low error probability
 Very high bit rate data transmission
QPSK MODULATOR

 Transmits two bits per symbol.

 In other words, a QPSK symbol doesn’t
represent 0 or 1—it represents 00, 01, 10, or
11.
 QPSK Modulator uses a bit-splitter, two multipliers
with local oscillator, a 2-bit serial to parallel
converter, and a summer circuit
 At the input of the modulator, the digital data’s even
bits (i.e., bits 0,2,4 and so on) are stripped from the
data stream by a “bit-splitter” and are multiplied
with a carrier to generate a BPSK signal (called PSKI).
 At the same time, the data’s odd bits (i.e., bits
1,3,5 and so on) are stripped from the data stream
and are multiplied with the same carrier to generate
a second BPSK signal (called PSKQ).
 However, the PSKQ signal’s carrier is phase shifted by
90o before being modulated.
 Two BPSK signals are then simply added
together for transmission and, as they have
the same carrier frequency.
  The required 90o of phase separation
between the carriers allows the sidebands to
be separated by the receiver using phase
discrimination.
 Finally QPSK waveform is generated
QPSK-CONSTELLLATION
 The constellation diagram of QPSK
is as shown
 Displays the signal as a two-
dimensional xy-plane
scatter diagram
 Each adjacent symbol only differs
by one bit, sometimes known as
quaternary or quadri-phase PSK or
4-PSK, or 4-QAM.
 QPSK uses four points on the
constellation diagram, equi-spaced
around a circle.
 With four phases, QPSK can encode
two bits per symbol shown in the
diagram to minimize the BER- twice
the rate of BPSK.
QPSK DEMODULATOR
 QPSK Demodulator uses two product demodulator circuits
with local oscillator, two band pass filters, two integrator
circuits, and a 2-bit parallel to serial converter.
 The two product detectors at the input of demodulator
simultaneously demodulate the two BPSK signals. The pair
of bits are recovered here from the original data. These
signals after processing, are passed to the parallel to serial
converter
8-PSK
 With 8-PSK, 3 bits are encoded forming
tribits and producing 8 different output
phases
 To encode 8 different phases, incoming bits
are encoded in group of 3 called tribits
CONSTELLATION-8 PSK
 The diagram shows
information is
transmitted as one of 8
"symbols", each
representing 3 bits of
data.
 Each symbol is encoded
as a different phase
shift of the carrier sine
wave: 0°, 45°, 90°, 135°,
180°, 225°, 270°, 315°
 PSK-ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES,
APPLICATIONS
Advantages
  More power efficient modulation technique compare to ASK and FSK.
 Less susceptible to errors compare to ASK modulation and occupies
same bandwidth as ASK.
 Higher data rate of transmission can be achieved using high level of
PSK modulations such as QPSK (represents 2 bits per constellation),
16-QAM (represents 4 bits per constellation) etc.
Disadvantages
 It has lower bandwidth efficiency.
 The detection and recovery algorithms are very complex.
 Multi-level PSK modulation schemes (QPSK, 16QAM etc.) are more
sensitive to phase variations.
 Offers lower bandwidth efficiency compare to ASK modulation type.
Applications
 This method is broadly used for bio-metric,
wireless LAN along with wireless
communications like Bluetooth and RFID.
 Local Oscillator
 Optical communications
 Multi-channel WDM
 Nonlinear effects for WDM transmission
MINIMUM SHIFT KEYING (MSK)
 Minimum shift keying, MSK, is a form
frequency modulation based on a system
called continuous-phase frequency-shift
keying.
 MSK offers advantages in terms of spectral
efficiency when compared to other similar
modes
 Also enables power amplifiers to operate in
saturation enabling them to provide high
levels of efficiency.
MINIMUM SHIFT KEYING (MSK)
 It is found that binary data consisting of sharp transitions
between "one" and "zero" states and vice versa potentially
creates signals that have sidebands extending out a long
way from the carrier
 This creates problems for many radio communications
systems, as any sidebands outside the allowed bandwidth
cause interference to adjacent channels and any radio
communications links that may be using them.
 MSK has the feature that there are no phase
discontinuities and this significantly reduces the
bandwidth needed over other forms of phase and
frequency shift keying.
MINIMUM SHIFT KEYING (MSK)
 To overcome this problem ,GMSK is often used and this is
based on MSK modulation. 
 Advantage is known as a continuous phase scheme.
 Here there are no phase discontinuities because the
frequency changes occur at the carrier zero crossing
points.
MINIMUM SHIFT KEYING (MSK)
 Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) is a form of modulation
based on frequency shift keying that has no phase
discontinuities and provides efficient use of spectrum as well as
enabling high efficiency radio power amplifiers
 GMSK, is a form of frequency modulation that is used in radio
communications systems.
 The unique factor of MSK that the frequency difference
between the logical one and logical zero states is always equal
to half the data rate. This can be expressed in terms of the
modulation index, and it is always equal to 0.5.
 GMSK is probably most widely associated with the 2G GSM
mobile communications system where it proved to be an
effective form of modulation.
 It was one of the reasons that GSM cell phones had a long
battery life in view of the high efficiency that could be
obtained from the RF power amplifier
REVISION OF VARIOUS
MODULATION SCHEMES
QAM - INTRODUCTION
HOW QAM WAVE IS GENERATED?
HOW QAM WAVE IS GENERATED?
CONSTELLATION DIAGRAM OF
QAM
4 QAM WAVEFORM
SINE WAVEFORM AT VARIOUS
ANGLES
8 QAM WAVEFORM
16 QAM CONSTELLATIONS
QAM - MODULATOR
QAM - DEMODULATOR
BITS PER SYMBOL IN QAM
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
APPLICATIONS
APPLICATIONS
BANDWIDTH REQUIREMENT FOR
QAM
 If k bits of information is encoded in the
amplitude and phase combinations then the
data rate:

R  k /T

R- data rate, T-symbol time, k- number of

bits in each symbol
Where 1/T = Symbol Rate = R/k
BANDWIDTH REQUIREMENT FOR
QAM
 If you consider a constant information transmission
rate, i.e. a constant bit rate, you can see that
increasing the number of bits per symbol makes the
symbol time increase, hence the required
bandwidth decreases.
 To be more explicit, imagine you have to transmit a
message with a bit rate of 64kbit/s.
 If you use 4-QAM you can transmit 2 bit per symbol,
so you need to transmit at 32kSymbols/s (32kBaud).
 If you use 64-QAM you can transmit 6 bit per
symbol, hence your baud rate drops to
~10.6kSymbols/s (10.6kBaud).
 Bandwidth requirement for QAM

 Can show that bandwidth W needed is

approximately 1/T for Optimal Receiver

1 R R
W  
T k log 2 M
Where M = number of symbols
(k = number of bits per symbol)
 Bandwidth Efficiency of QAM

 Bandwidth efficiency of QAM is thus:

M R/W
64 6
R 32 5
 log 2 M 16 4
W 8 3
4 2
2 1
 Bandwidth Efficiency of QAM

M R/W
64 6
32 5
16 4
8 3
4 2
2 1
COMPARISON OF ASK, FSK, PSK
& QAM