Modulation

For other uses, see Modulation (disambiguation).

tion synthesis or ring modulation synthesis).

In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is

the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the carrier signal, with a modulating signal that typically contains information to be transmitted.

1 Analog modulation methods

In telecommunications, modulation is the process of conveying a message signal, for example a digital bit stream
or an analog audio signal, inside another signal that can
be physically transmitted. Modulation of a sine waveform
transforms a baseband message signal into a passband signal.
A modulator is a device that performs modulation. A
demodulator (sometimes detector or demod) is a device
that performs demodulation, the inverse of modulation.
A modem (from modulatordemodulator) can perform
both operations.
The aim of analog modulation is to transfer an analog
baseband (or lowpass) signal, for example an audio signal A low-frequency message signal (top) may be carried by an AM
or TV signal, over an analog bandpass channel at a dier- or FM radio wave.
ent frequency, for example over a limited radio frequency
band or a cable TV network channel.
In analog modulation, the modulation is applied continuThe aim of digital modulation is to transfer a digital bit ously in response to the analog information signal.
stream over an analog bandpass channel, for example over
the public switched telephone network (where a bandpass
lter limits the frequency range to 3003400 Hz) or over 1.1
a limited radio frequency band.

List of common analog modulation

techniques

Analog and digital modulation facilitate frequency di- Common analog modulation techniques are:
vision multiplexing (FDM), where several low pass information signals are transferred simultaneously over the
Amplitude modulation (AM) (here the amplitude of
same shared physical medium, using separate passband
the carrier signal is varied in accordance to the inchannels (several dierent carrier frequencies).
stantaneous amplitude of the modulating signal)
The aim of digital baseband modulation methods, also
known as line coding, is to transfer a digital bit stream
Double-sideband modulation (DSB)
over a baseband channel, typically a non-ltered copper
Double-sideband modulation with carrier
wire such as a serial bus or a wired local area network.
(DSB-WC) (used on the AM radio broadThe aim of pulse modulation methods is to transfer a
casting band)
narrowband analog signal, for example a phone call over
Double-sideband
suppressed-carrier
a wideband baseband channel or, in some of the schemes,
transmission (DSB-SC)
as a bit stream over another digital transmission system.
Double-sideband reduced carrier transIn music synthesizers, modulation may be used to synthemission (DSB-RC)
sise waveforms with an extensive overtone spectrum us Single-sideband modulation (SSB, or SSBing a small number of oscillators. In this case the carrier
AM)
frequency is typically in the same order or much lower
Single-sideband modulation with carrier
than the modulating waveform (see frequency modula(SSB-WC)
1

2
Single-sideband modulation suppressed
carrier modulation (SSB-SC)
Vestigial sideband modulation (VSB, or VSBAM)
Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)
Angle modulation, which is approximately constant
envelope

DIGITAL MODULATION METHODS

the bit sequence 00, the second 01, the third

10 and the fourth 11. If the modem plays a
melody consisting of 1000 tones per second,
the symbol rate is 1000 symbols/second, or
baud. Since each tone (i.e., symbol) represents
a message consisting of two digital bits in this
example, the bit rate is twice the symbol rate,
i.e. 2000 bits per second. This is similar to the
technique used by dialup modems as opposed
to DSL modems.

Frequency modulation (FM) (here the frequency of the carrier signal is varied in accor- According to one denition of digital signal, the modudance to the instantaneous amplitude of the lated signal is a digital signal. According to another demodulating signal)
nition, the modulation is a form of digital-to-analog con Phase modulation (PM) (here the phase shift version. Most textbooks would consider digital modulaof the carrier signal is varied in accordance tion schemes as a form of digital transmission, synonywith the instantaneous amplitude of the mod- mous to data transmission; very few would consider it as
analog transmission.
ulating signal)

Digital modulation methods

2.1 Fundamental
methods

digital

modulation

In digital modulation, an analog carrier signal is modu- The most fundamental digital modulation techniques are
lated by a discrete signal. Digital modulation methods based on keying:
can be considered as digital-to-analog conversion, and
the corresponding demodulation or detection as analog PSK (phase-shift keying): a nite number of phases
to-digital conversion. The changes in the carrier signal
are used.
are chosen from a nite number of M alternative symbols
FSK (frequency-shift keying): a nite number of
(the modulation alphabet).
frequencies are used.
ASK (amplitude-shift keying): a nite number of
amplitudes are used.
1 second

QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation): a nite

number of at least two phases and at least two amplitudes are used.

symbol

10

00

11

01

Schematic of 4 baud (8 bit/s) data link containing arbitrarily chosen values.

A simple example: A telephone line is

designed for transferring audible sounds, for
example tones, and not digital bits (zeros and
ones). Computers may however communicate
over a telephone line by means of modems,
which are representing the digital bits by tones,
called symbols. If there are four alternative
symbols (corresponding to a musical instrument that can generate four dierent tones,
one at a time), the rst symbol may represent

In QAM, an inphase signal (or I, with one example being a cosine waveform) and a quadrature phase signal
(or Q, with an example being a sine wave) are amplitude
modulated with a nite number of amplitudes, and then
summed. It can be seen as a two-channel system, each
channel using ASK. The resulting signal is equivalent to
a combination of PSK and ASK.
In all of the above methods, each of these phases, frequencies or amplitudes are assigned a unique pattern of
binary bits. Usually, each phase, frequency or amplitude
encodes an equal number of bits. This number of bits
comprises the symbol that is represented by the particular phase, frequency or amplitude.
If the alphabet consists of M = 2N alternative symbols,
each symbol represents a message consisting of N bits. If
the symbol rate (also known as the baud rate) is fS symbols/second (or baud), the data rate is N fS bit/second.
For example, with an alphabet consisting of 16 alternative
symbols, each symbol represents 4 bits. Thus, the data
rate is four times the baud rate.

2.3

List of common digital modulation techniques

In the case of PSK, ASK or QAM, where the carrier

frequency of the modulated signal is constant, the modulation alphabet is often conveniently represented on a
constellation diagram, showing the amplitude of the I signal at the x-axis, and the amplitude of the Q signal at the
y-axis, for each symbol.

2.2

Modulator and detector principles of

operation

PSK and ASK, and sometimes also FSK, are often generated and detected using the principle of QAM. The I
and Q signals can be combined into a complex-valued
signal I+jQ (where j is the imaginary unit). The resulting so called equivalent lowpass signal or equivalent
baseband signal is a complex-valued representation of
the real-valued modulated physical signal (the so-called
passband signal or RF signal).
These are the general steps used by the modulator to
transmit data:
1. Group the incoming data bits into codewords, one
for each symbol that will be transmitted.
2. Map the codewords to attributes, for example amplitudes of the I and Q signals (the equivalent low
pass signal), or frequency or phase values.

3
3. Frequency shifting of the RF signal to the equivalent baseband I and Q signals, or to an intermediate
frequency (IF) signal, by multiplying the RF signal
with a local oscillator sinewave and cosine wave frequency (see the superheterodyne receiver principle).
4. Sampling and analog-to-digital conversion (ADC)
(sometimes before or instead of the above point, for
example by means of undersampling).
5. Equalization ltering, for example a matched lter, compensation for multipath propagation, time
spreading, phase distortion and frequency selective
fading, to avoid intersymbol interference and symbol distortion.
6. Detection of the amplitudes of the I and Q signals,
or the frequency or phase of the IF signal.
7. Quantization of the amplitudes, frequencies or
phases to the nearest allowed symbol values.
8. Mapping of the quantized amplitudes, frequencies
or phases to codewords (bit groups).
9. Parallel-to-serial conversion of the codewords into a
bit stream.
10. Pass the resultant bit stream on for further processing such as removal of any error-correcting codes.

3. Adapt pulse shaping or some other ltering to limit

the bandwidth and form the spectrum of the equivalent low pass signal, typically using digital signal
processing.

As is common to all digital communication systems, the

design of both the modulator and demodulator must be
done simultaneously. Digital modulation schemes are
possible because the transmitter-receiver pair have prior
4. Perform digital to analog conversion (DAC) of the knowledge of how data is encoded and represented in
I and Q signals (since today all of the above is the communications system. In all digital communicanormally achieved using digital signal processing, tion systems, both the modulator at the transmitter and
the demodulator at the receiver are structured so that they
DSP).
perform inverse operations.
5. Generate a high frequency sine carrier waveform,
Non-coherent modulation methods do not require a reand perhaps also a cosine quadrature component.
ceiver reference clock signal that is phase synchronized
Carry out the modulation, for example by multiplywith the sender carrier signal. In this case, modulation
ing the sine and cosine waveform with the I and Q
symbols (rather than bits, characters, or data packets)
signals, resulting in the equivalent low pass signal beare asynchronously transferred. The opposite is coherent
ing frequency shifted to the modulated passband sigmodulation.
nal or RF signal. Sometimes this is achieved using
DSP technology, for example direct digital synthesis using a waveform table, instead of analog signal 2.3 List of common digital modulation
processing. In that case the above DAC step should
techniques
be done after this step.
6. Amplication and analog bandpass ltering to avoid The most common digital modulation techniques are:
harmonic distortion and periodic spectrum.
Phase-shift keying (PSK)
At the receiver side, the demodulator typically performs:
Binary PSK (BPSK), using M=2 symbols
1. Bandpass ltering.
2. Automatic gain control, AGC (to compensate for
attenuation, for example fading).

Quadrature PSK (QPSK), using M=4 symbols

8PSK, using M=8 symbols
16PSK, using M=16 symbols

DIGITAL MODULATION METHODS

Dierential PSK (DPSK)

OFDM is based on the idea of frequency-division multiplexing (FDM), but the multiplexed streams are all parts
Dierential QPSK (DQPSK)
of a single original stream. The bit stream is split into
Oset QPSK (OQPSK)
several parallel data streams, each transferred over its
/4QPSK
own sub-carrier using some conventional digital modulation scheme. The modulated sub-carriers are summed
Frequency-shift keying (FSK)
to form an OFDM signal. This dividing and recombining helps with handling channel impairments. OFDM is
Audio frequency-shift keying (AFSK)
considered as a modulation technique rather than a mul Multi-frequency shift keying (M-ary FSK or tiplex technique, since it transfers one bit stream over
MFSK)
one communication channel using one sequence of so Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF)
called OFDM symbols. OFDM can be extended to multiuser channel access method in the orthogonal frequency Amplitude-shift keying (ASK)
division multiple access (OFDMA) and multi-carrier
On-o keying (OOK), the most common ASK form code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) schemes, allowing several users to share the same physical medium
M-ary vestigial sideband modulation, for ex- by giving dierent sub-carriers or spreading codes to difample 8VSB
ferent users.
Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), a com- Of the two kinds of RF power amplier, switching ampliers (Class D ampliers) cost less and use less batbination of PSK and ASK
tery power than linear ampliers of the same output
Polar modulation like QAM a combination of power. However, they only work with relatively constantPSK and ASK
amplitude-modulation signals such as angle modulation
(FSK or PSK) and CDMA, but not with QAM and
Continuous phase modulation (CPM) methods
OFDM. Nevertheless, even though switching ampliers
are completely unsuitable for normal QAM constella Minimum-shift keying (MSK)
tions, often the QAM modulation principle are used to
Gaussian minimum-shift keying (GMSK)
drive switching ampliers with these FM and other wave Continuous-phase frequency-shift keying forms, and sometimes QAM demodulators are used to
(CPFSK)
receive the signals put out by these switching ampliers.
Orthogonal
frequency-division
(OFDM) modulation

multiplexing

Discrete multitone (DMT), including adaptive

modulation and bit-loading
Wavelet modulation
Trellis coded modulation (TCM), also known as
Trellis modulation
Spread-spectrum techniques
Direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)
Chirp spread spectrum (CSS) according to
IEEE 802.15.4a CSS uses pseudo-stochastic
coding
Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS)
applies a special scheme for channel release
SIM31 (SIM) New digital Mode SIM31
SIM63 tks SWL Tunisian

2.4 Automatic digital modulation recognition (ADMR)

Automatic digital modulation recognition in intelligent
communication systems is one of the most important issues in software dened radio and cognitive radio. According to incremental expanse of intelligent receivers,
automatic modulation recognition becomes a challenging
topic in telecommunication systems and computer engineering. Such systems have many civil and military applications. Moreover, blind recognition of modulation type
is an important problem in commercial systems, especially in software dened radio. Usually in such systems,
there are some extra information for system conguration, but considering blind approaches in intelligent receivers, we can reduce information overload and increase
transmission performance.[1] Obviously, with no knowledge of the transmitted data and many unknown parameters at the receiver, such as the signal power, carrier frequency and phase osets, timing information, etc., blind
identication of the modulation is a dicult task. This
becomes even more challenging in real-world scenarios with multipath fading, frequency-selective and timevarying channels.[2]

MSK and GMSK are particular cases of continuous phase

modulation. Indeed, MSK is a particular case of the subfamily of CPM known as continuous-phase frequencyshift keying (CPFSK) which is dened by a rectangular
frequency pulse (i.e. a linearly increasing phase pulse) of
There are two main approaches to automatic modulaone symbol-time duration (total response signaling).

5
tion recognition. The rst approach uses likelihood-based
methods to assign an input signal to a proper class. Another recent approach is based on feature extraction.

2.5

Digital baseband modulation or line

coding

Main article: Line code

The term digital baseband modulation (or digital baseband transmission) is synonymous to line codes. These
are methods to transfer a digital bit stream over an analog baseband channel (a.k.a. lowpass channel) using
a pulse train, i.e. a discrete number of signal levels,
by directly modulating the voltage or current on a cable. Common examples are unipolar, non-return-to-zero
(NRZ), Manchester and alternate mark inversion (AMI)
codings.[3]

Pulse modulation methods

Pulse modulation schemes aim at transferring a narrowband analog signal over an analog baseband channel as
a two-level signal by modulating a pulse wave. Some
pulse modulation schemes also allow the narrowband analog signal to be transferred as a digital signal (i.e., as a
quantized discrete-time signal) with a xed bit rate, which
can be transferred over an underlying digital transmission system, for example, some line code. These are not
modulation schemes in the conventional sense since they
are not channel coding schemes, but should be considered
as source coding schemes, and in some cases analog-todigital conversion techniques.
Analog-over-analog methods

4 Miscellaneous modulation techniques

The use of on-o keying to transmit Morse code
at radio frequencies is known as continuous wave
(CW) operation.
Adaptive modulation
Space modulation is a method whereby signals are
modulated within airspace such as that used in
instrument landing systems.

5 Further reading
Multipliers vs. Modulators Analog Dialogue, June
2013
The Easiest Way to Understand Modulation Blog
Post and YouTube Video, 2014

6 See also
Neuromodulation
Demodulation
Electrical resonance
Modulation order
Types of radio emissions
Communications channel
Channel access methods

Pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM)

Channel coding

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) and Pulse-depth

modulation (PDM)

Line code

Pulse-position modulation (PPM)

Analog-over-digital methods
Pulse-code modulation (PCM)
Dierential PCM (DPCM)
Adaptive DPCM (ADPCM)
Delta modulation (DM or -modulation)
Delta-sigma modulation ()
Continuously variable slope delta modulation
(CVSDM), also called Adaptive-delta modulation
(ADM)
Pulse-density modulation (PDM)

Telecommunication
Modem
RF modulator
Codec
Ring modulation

7 References
[1] M. Hadi Valipour, M. Mehdi Homayounpour and M.
Amin Mehralian, Automatic digital modulation recognition in presence of noise using SVM and PSO, in Proceedings of 2012 Sixth International Symposium on Telecommunications (IST), pp 378-382, Nov 2012, Tehran, Iran.

[2] Dobre, Octavia A., Ali Abdi, Yeheskel Bar-Ness, and Wei
Su. Communications, IET 1, no. 2 (2007): 137-156.
(2007). Survey of automatic modulation classication
techniques: classical approaches and new trends (PDF).
IET Communications: 137156.
[3] Ke-Lin Du and M. N. S. Swamy (2010). Wireless Communication Systems: From RF Subsystems to 4G Enabling
Technologies. Cambridge University Press. p. 188. ISBN
978-0-521-11403-5.

External links
Interactive presentation of soft-demapping for
AWGN-channel in a web-demo Institute of
Telecommunications, University of Stuttgart
Modem(Modulation and Demodulation)

EXTERNAL LINKS

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