FACULTY OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

COMMUNICATION ENGINEEERING FUNDAMENTALS ( ECM412)

CHAPTER 4
DIGITAL MODULATION
(Lesson 1)

By: Hasnida Bt Saad 1

 Concept of
Digital Communication System
• Digital transmission is the transmission of digital signals between two or more
points in a communication system.

• The original source information may be in digital form which could be binary or
any other form of discrete-level digital pulses, or it could be analog signals that
have been converted to digital pulses prior to transmission and converted back to
analog signals in the receiver.

• Digital transmission systems use both metallic and optical fiber cables for their
transmission medium. Digital pulses cannot be propagated through a wireless
transmission system such as Earth’s atmosphere or free space (vacuum).

• Today, digital transmission systems are used to carry not only digitally encoded
voice and video signals but also digital source information directly between
computers and computer networks.

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 Basic elements of
a single channel digital communication system

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 Advantages of Digital Transmission
1) More immune to Noise
This is because digital signal is in pulse form. Pulses are
evaluated during a precise time interval, and a simple
determination is made whether the pulse is above or below a
prescribed reference level.
2) Suitable for digital signal processing.
It is suitable because pulse signal can easily integrate with
electronic devices.
3) Suitable for multiplexing
This is because pulse signal is suitable to be integrated with
Multiplexer. Multiplexing is the transmission of information
from more than one source to more than one destination
over the same transmission medium (facility)

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4)Digital signals are much simpler to be stored than
analog signals
The transmission rate of digital signals can be easily
changed to adapt to different environments and to
interface with different types of electronic
equipment.
5)Resistant to additive noise
Digital signal use Repeater for signal regeneration
rather than signal amplification. Noise produced in
electronic circuits (amplifier) is additive (i.e. it
accumulates). Therefore, the signal-to-noise ratio in
analog system deteriorates each time an analog
signal is amplified.
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6) Further transmission distance
This is because Repeater reproduce an entirely
new digital signal with the same signal-to-noise
ratio as the original transmitted signal.
Therefore, digital signals can be transported for
longer distance than analog signals.
7)Easy to compare and evaluate error performance
This is because digital signal is in pulse form.
8) Error detection & error correction capability
This is because, digital signal can easily adapt
with electronic system.
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Limitations of digital transmission
1) Higher bandwidth requirement.
The transmission of digitally encoded analogs signals
requires significantly more bandwidth than simply
transmitting the original analog signal. Bandwidth is
one of the most important aspects of any
communications system because it is costly and
limited. More digit to encode the signal will require
more bandwidth.
2) Additional coding & decoding circuitry.
Analog signals must be converted to digital pulses
before transmit and it will be converted back to their
original analog form at the receiver. Thus additional
encoding and decoding circuitry is needed.
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3) Requires precise time synchronization
Digital transmission requires precise time
synchronization between clocks in the transmitters
and receivers in order to read out the transmitted
signal.

4) System incompatibility
Digital transmission systems are incompatible with
older transmission systems.

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 Pulse Modulation
Pulse Modulation process consists of several stages as below:

1) Sampling analog information signal

2) Converting those samples into discrete pulses
3) Transporting the pulses from source to destination over
physical transmission mediumPCM is the only digitally
encoded modulation technique

• PCM is commonly used for digital transmission.

• PCM is a binary system where a pulse or no-pulse represents
either a logic 1 or a logic 0
• PWM, PPM and PAM are digital but seldom binary because
their pulses do not represent a single binary digit (bit).
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 4 methods of Pulse Modulation
1) Pulse width modulation (PWM)
The width of the sample pulse is varied based on the amplitude of the information
signal. High amplitude of information signal will produce broader pulse width.

2) Pulse position modulation (PPM)

Sample pulse is shifted horizontally (x-axis) based on the intensity/amplitude of
the information signal

3) Pulse amplitude modulation (PAM)

Amplitude of sample pulse is varied based on the intensity/amplitude of the
information signal.

4) Pulse code modulation (PCM)

PCM works based on the PAM signal. Each intensity/ amplitude of the PAM pulses
will be represented/encoded into several binary number (1 & 0) .This binary
number is equivalent to the intensity/amplitude of the information signal that is
sampled out by the sample pulse.
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 Analog signal
(information signal)

Sample Pulses (obey

the Nyquist sampling
frequency theorem)

PWM/PDM

PPM

PAM

PCM 11
 PCM Block Diagram
Single-channel PCM transmitter

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Transmitter-Repeater-Receiver block diagram

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 Operation & Function of each block in
Transmitter-Repeater-Receiver diagram
1) Bandpass filter - limits the frequency of the
analog input signal to the standard voice-band
frequency range of 300 Hz to 3400 Hz.
2) Sample-and-hold circuit -periodically samples
the analog input signal and converts those
samples to a multilevel PAM signal.
3) Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) - converts
the PAM samples to parallel PCM codes.
4) Parallel-to-serial converter – converts the
parallel PCM codes to serial binary data (serial
digital pulses).
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5) Repeaters - are placed at prescribed distance
to regenerate the digital pulse. In receiver a
serial-to-parallel converter converts the serial
pulses to parallel PCM code.
6) Digital-to-analog converter (DAC)- to converts
the parallel PCM codes to multilevel PAM
signals.
7) Hold circuit -is basically a low-pass filter that
converts the PAM signals back to the original
analog form.

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1st process in PCM : Filtering the information signal

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 2nd process in PCM : Sampling
Sampling is the process of taking samples of
the analog input signal at a rate of Nyquist
sampling.
Function of sampling circuit :
- to periodically sample the continually changing
analog input voltage and convert those samples
to a series of constant-amplitude pulses that
can more easily be converted to binary PCM
code.

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 Nyquist’s sampling theorem
• “For a sample to be reproduced accurately at
the receiver, the sampling rate (fs) cycle must
be sampled at least twice of the highest audio
input signal, fm(max).”

fs ≥ 2fm(max)

• If fs < 2 fm(max),- the received information signal will

distort called aliasing or foldover

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or the minimum Nyquist sampling rate is,

fs(min) = 2fm(max)

fs = Nyquist sample rate (Hz or samples/sec)

fs(min)= Minimum Nyquist sample rate (Hz)
fm(max) = Maximum audio frequency (Hz)

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The 3 basic conditions of sampling process are:
1. Sampling at fs = 2 fm(max)
- When the modulating signal is sampled at a minimum sampling frequency, the
frequency spectrum is shown as figure below.

2. Sampling at fs > 2 fm(max)

- This sampling rate creates a guard band between fm(max) and the lowest
frequency component (fs - fm(max) ) of the sampling harmonics.

3. Sampling at fs < 2 fm(max)

- When the sampling rate is less than the minimum value, distortion will occurs. This distortion is called
aliasing or folded over distortion.

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 Aliasing Distortion

Information signal in channel bandwidth will overlap to another channel bandwidth.

Therefore some of the information is missing

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3rd process in PCM : Quantization
Quantization is the process of converting an
infinite number of amplitude possibilities (analog
signal samples) to a pre-determined discrete
levels.
The number of quantization levels, L,
depends on the number of bits per sample,
n,

L= 2n

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 Digitized sample/quantized sample
Intensity/amplitude of
the information signal Maximum amplitude of the
information signal is 7 volts-
therefore the quantized
sample will be encoded
using 3 bits binary number

Sample pulse-at a rate of Nyquist’s

sampling theorem 23
 Coding example
Quantized Level (volt) Code word (3 bits per sample)
0 000
1 001
2 010
3 011
4 100
5 101
6 110
7 111

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Restoration of the transmitted signal at receiver

The whole transmitted signal can be generated at the receiver based on the quantized
level
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 Resolution, ∆V
• Resolution is depending on the maximum voltage, Vmax,
and the minimum voltage, Vmin, of the information
signal.

Vmax − Vmin
V =
L −1
• Therefore, ∆V is the magnitude of the step-size of the
quantization levels or the gap between the quantization
level

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 Quantization Error
• Quantization error (Qe) is the round-off error
in the transmitted signal produced when the
code is converted back to analog at the
receiver.
• It is the difference between the original signal
level and the quantized signal level.
• The maximum quantization error is given by:
V resolution
Qemax = =
2 2
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 Quantization Error

Qe is the difference between the actual analog level and the

reported quantized level.
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 4 th process in PCM: Encoding
• Encoding is a process where each
quantized sample is digitally encoded into
n-bits codeword, where:
n = log 2 L
where n = number of bits/sample
L= number of quantization levels
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 Transmission Bit Rate, R
Transmission bit rate, R, is the rate of
information transmission (bits/sec). It
depends on the sampling frequency, fs
and the number of bits per sample
used, n to encode the signal.

R = n  fs (bps)
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 Transmission Bandwidth
• Transmission bandwidth (TB) is equal to
the transmission bit rate, but the unit is
hertz.

TB = n  f s Hz

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Figure below illustrates an analog waveform signal can be coded into 3 bits
code using single mode for transmission using PCM technique.

Analog input signal

Sampling pulse

Sampled waveform
Sampling process
- Multilevel PAM signal
111

101 101

Quantized signal
011
Quantizing and encoding process
010
001
- Convert the PAM to parallel codes

0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1
Parallel codes is converted to serial
PCM pulses
data in parallel to serial converter
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Example 1

• For a single channel PCM system with a

sample rate fs = 6000 samples per second
and a seven bits compressed of PCM
code, determine the line speed.

Solution: 6000 samples 7 bits

line speed = 
sec ond sample

= 42 000 bps = 42kbps

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Example 2 :
A PCM transmitter system is transmitting a 6kHz audio signal. The sampling
frequency used is 10% higher than the minimum sampling rate for the
guard-band purpose and the quantization level used is 256.
Determine:
i) the number of bits for every sample,
ii) the sampling frequency rate and
iii) the transmission bit rate (bps).

If the maximum quantization error is 0.01V , what is the resolution step of

the quantization level . Hence determine the peak-to-peak amplitude of the
information signal.

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 Example 3 :
An information signal in a form Vm(t) = 20 cos(60 x 103t)V to be transmitted through a
binary PCM modulation. The signal is sampled at a rate of 15% higher than the minimum
sampling frequency and the quantization level used is 512. Calculate :
i) The sampling frequency that can be used,
ii) The number of bit per sample,
iii) The transmission bandwidth,
iv) The resolution step and,
v) The quantization error.
If the maximum quantization error is 0.02V, determine the resolution step of the quantization
level and peak to peak amplitude of the information signal.
Solution:

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Example 4 :
Figure Q1e shows the analog waveform to be transmitted using 3 bits PCM system. Using the
ANSWER SHEET Q1e in appendix, shows how the analog signal can be converted to:
i) Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) signal,
ii) Quantized signal,
iii) A serial binary number (PCM code)
iv) PCM pulses.
(8 marks)
V(t)

Analog
1
signal
0 t

-1

-2

V(t)

Sampling
Pulse 36
t
•
V(t)

Analog
1
signal
0 t

-1

-2

V(t)

Sampling
Pulse
t
V(t)

1
PAM 0 t

-1

-2

V(t)

1
Quantized
signal 0 t

-1

-2

Serial PCM
Code
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PCM Pulses t
How to represent +2V & -2V
quantized level in binary ?

MSB 2nd 1st

22 21 20
+2V 1 1 0
-2V 0 1 0
The most significant bit
(MSB) represents positive
value as logic ‘1’ and
negative value as logic ‘0’

Summation of 1st and 2nd

bits represent the amount
of quantized level

If the whole information has

positive value, there will be
no bit to represent the
polarity (positive or
negative) 38
 Summary of main processes in PCM encoder and
decoder

PCM Encoder:

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PCM Decoder:

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Example:
We want to digitize the human voice. What is the
bit rate, assuming 8 bits per sample?
Solution
The human voice normally contains frequencies
from 300 to 4000 Hz. So the sampling rate and
bit rate are calculated as follows:

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 Summary
At the end of this lesson 1, students should be able to :
1. understand the concept of digital communication
system.
2. Identify the advantages and limitations of digital
transmission.
3. understand the concept of PWM, PPM and PAM and
PCM techniques.
4. understand the process of filtering, sampling,
quantizing and encoding in the PCM system.
5. determine the transmission bit rate and transmission
bandwidth.
6. encode an analog information signal into PCM pulses.

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