Communication Systems

Lec. 8
Outline
● Frequency Modulation
Frequency Modulation
● Amplitude of the carrier remain constant.
● Frequency of the carrier is changed by the modulating
signal.
● The carrier frequency proportionally changes with the
modulating signal’s amplitude.
Instantaneous Frequency
● FM signal varies the instantaneous frequency of the carrier in
proportion to the modulating signal.

Where m(t) is the modulating signal.

Let us consider a generalized sinusoidal signal x(t)

Where is generalized angle and is the function of t.

A conventional sinusoid
Cont’d.
● The angular frequency of x(t) is the slope the slope of its angle .
● This concept can be generalized at every instant and instantaneous frequency of wi defines the
slope of at t.
● Thus the instantaneous angular frequency and generalized angle are related as;

The above equations show the possibility of varying the angle of a carrier by the modulating signal
m(t).
Cont’d.
● Such type of modulation where angle of the carrier is varied in some manner with modulating
signal is called Angle Modulation or Exponential Modulation.
● Two simple possibilities are Phase Modulation (PM) and Frequency Modulation (FM).
The instantaneous angular frequency is;

In PM the instantaneous angular frequency is given as

● In FM the instantaneous angular frequency is;
FM Vs PM
• In FM the maximum and minimum
frequency is achieved at the peaks
of the modulation signal.
• In PM the maximum and minimum
frequency is achieved at zero
crossing points.
Frequency Deviation

● The amount of change in carrier frequency

produced by the modulating signal is known as
frequency deviation fd
● Both in FM and PM the frequency deviation is
directly proportional to the amplitude of the
modulating signal.
● The maximum frequency deviation occurs at the
peak positive and negative amplitudes of the
modulating signal.
● The frequency deviation in FM is constant for any modulating signal frequency.
● Only the amplitude of the modulation signal determines the amount of deviation.
● Whereas, in PM the frequency deviation varies with the modulating signal frequency too.
● This is because of the faster the period of the modulating signal the faster the voltage change
is.
●
Example
● A transmitter operates on a frequency of 915 MHz. The maximum FM deviation is 12.5 kHz.
What are the maximum and minimum frequencies that occur during modulation?

915 MHz= 915,000 kHz

Maximum déviation = 915,000 + 12.5 5 = 915,012.5 kHz

Minimum deviation = 915,000 -12.5 5 = 914,987.5 kHz

Sidebands
● Any modulation process produce the side band
frequencies.
● The sideband frequencies are the sum and difference of
the modulating frequencies.
● In FM and PM a large number of upper and lower side
bands are produced.
● As result the spectrum of FM and PM is much wider
than the AM.
● As the amplitude of the modulating signal varies, the frequency deviation changes.
● The number of side band produced, their amplitude and spacing depends on the frequency
deviation and modulating frequency.

● Theoretically, the FM process produce infinite number of sidebands.

● Therefore, theoretically infinite large bandwidth.

● In practice the sideband with largest amplitude are significant in carrying the information.
● Typically any sideband whose amplitude is less than 1 percent of the unmodulated carrier is
considered insignificant.
Modulation Index
● The ratio of the frequency deviation to the modulating frequency is known as modulation index.

is the frequency deviation and is the modulating signal frequency

Sometimes is used to represent frequency deviation
FM Signal Bandwidth
● The higher the modulation index, the greater the number of significant sideband and the wider
the bandwidth of the signal.
● For spectrum conservation, the Bandwidth of the FM can be restricted by putting the upper limit
on the modulation index.
● The bandwidth of the FM is given as;

N is the number of significant sideband.

Carson’s Rule
● This rule recognizes only the power in the most significant sidebands with amplitudes greater
than 2 percent of the carrier.

● Carson’s rule will always give bandwidth lower than calculated with the formula discussed earlier.
Example
● What is the maximum bandwidth of an FM signal with a deviation of 30 kHz and a maximum
modulating signal of 5 kHz as determined by
a) With bandwidth formula
b) Carson’s rule?

Carson’s rule
Noise Suppression Effect in FM
● FM signal have a constant modulated carrier amplitude.
● FM receiver contain limiter circuit that deliberately restrict the amplitude of the received signal.
● Any amplitude variations occurring in the FM signal are effectively clipped off.
Phase Shift due to noise
● Noise amplitude added to an FM signal introduces a small frequency
variation, or phase shift.
● The noise signal containing many frequencies and rotating phasor N can
be represented as;

C is the phasor sum of the signal and noise and a phase angle shifted from
carrier by amount
● Amount of frequency shift due a phase shift can be determined by;

=frequency deviation produced by noise

= phase shift in radian
= Modulating signal frequency
Example
● Assume that the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) is 3 : 1 and the modulating signal frequency is 800 Hz.

a) Calculate the Phase Shif

b) Frequency deviation produced by the noise

The overall effect of the phase shift depends of the frequency deviation i.e. modulation index
• For higher modulation index the shift can be small and inconsequential.
• For little allowed deviation the shift can be sever.
Homework
● Example 5-6
Preemphasis

● Preemphasis circuits are used to offset high frequency noise

interference.
● At the transmitter the modulating signal is passed through a circuit with
amplifies the high frequency component more than the low frequency
component.
● The simplest form is high pass filter.
● The preemphasis circuit increases the energy content of the higher
frequency signals so that they become stronger than the high-frequency
noise components.
● Thus, Signal-to-Noise ratio is improved.
Deemphasis circuit
● To return the frequency response to a normal flat level a simple low
pass filter “Deemphasis circuit” is used at the receiver.
● Signals above its cutoff frequency are attenuated at the rate
● of 6 dB per octave
FM Circuits
Varactor Modulator
Frequency Modulating a Crystal Oscillator
● The frequency of the crystal Oscillator can be varied by
changing the capacitance in the series or parallel.
● The change in series capacitance slightly pull the natural
resonant frequency of the crystal oscillator.
● Modulating signal is applied to the varactor diode to vary the
series capacitance.
● Thus, Frequency modulation of a crystal oscillator is
achieved.
Limitation of crystal oscillator
● Small frequency deviation is possible with crystal oscillator.
● The frequency of the crystal oscillator can be change from several hundred Hz from its nominal
value, which is much less than the total deviation desired.

● The frequency deviation can be increased by using the frequency multiplier circuit after the
crystal oscillator circuit.
Phase Modulator
Phase Modulator

● Most modern FM transmitter use some form of phase modulation to produce indirect FM.
● Crystal Oscillator or crystal controlled frequency synthesizers are used to set the frequency
accuracy and maintain stability.
● The output of the crystal oscillator is fed to phase modulator,
● Where the phase shift is made in accordance with modulating signal.
Varactor Phase Modulator
Frequency Demodulator
Slope Detector
Phase Looked Loop