INVESTIGATION INTO PRS PRECODED, CONSTANT-ENVELOPE, CONTINUOUS PHASE DIGITAL MODULATION SCHEMES

J. N. Golby and R. M. Braun Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7700

Abstract - Constant envelope modulation systems such as QPSK and M S K have high out-of -band signal levels. Partial response signaling (PRS) has been used in PAM systems to improve spectral efficiency. Some systems such a s Continuous Phase Modulation ( C P M ) and Correlative Phase S h i f t Keying (CORPSK) make use of PRS, and exhibit improved performance over these modem types. A brief study of these schemes i s presented here, a s are some practical results f o r CORPSK.

t h e amplitude modulation (PAM) a r e a , making use of P a r t i a l Response Signaling (PRS). Their signals, however, have fluctuating envelopes. This investigation a t t e m p t s t o study t h e e f f e c t of applying PRS t o frequency- and phase-modulated systems with t h e aim of realizing t h e same benefits in angle modulation as are yielded in the amplitude domain. This study focuses on t w o schemes in particular - Continuous Phase Modulation (CPM) [21, 1 3 1 and Correlative Phase Shift Keying (CORPSK) 111. Tamed Frequency Modulation, o r TFM [41, has been shown t o be a n example of both systems 111, [31. I t h a s been shown t h a t these schemes are particular cases of pulse-shaped CPFSK 151.
11. MODULATION DEFINITION

I. INTRODUCTION
Constant-envelope modulation schemes are very a t t r a c t i v e f o r use in digital radio because of their high tolerance t o t h e non1inear operations convenient in high-power amplifiers and receiver IF stages. Traditionally, four-phase systems such as QPSK and MSK have been used because they represent a good compromise between necessary bandwidth and power efficiency ( t h e f o r m e r because stringent limitations on out-of-band spectral components must often be met, and t h e l a t t e r because good e r r o r performance must be achieved with only moderate power levels). However, any improvement in out-of-band signal level can only be achieved by filtering of t h e signal, and t h i s introduces envelope fluctuations and t h e r e f o r e reduces t h e schemes immunity t o t h e e f f e c t s of noniinearit ies. In many instances, filtering of t h e output signal is simply not possible because of t h e high f i l t e r Q-factors and signal powers involved. Any f u r t h e r nonlinear amplification of the signal simply causes spectral spreading. Clearly, t h e r e e x i s t s a need t o develop constant-envelope modulation schemes whose spectral efficiency i s higher than t h a t yielded by power-eff icient systems such as QPSK. Spectrally-ef f icient modems are currently being developed in

The constant-envelope phase-varying sinusoids studied here are of t h e f o r m Cos(@t + cP(t)), where t h e phase
C

function, Nt), follows an encoded p a t t e r n according t o some rule [ l l , [2l. Also, phase transitions are correlated t o ensure good spectral efficiency, as well as variety in phase s h i f t s t o improve power efficiency, and t h e r e f o r e system e r r o r performance. Fig. 1 shows a block diagram of such a system. CPFSK systems employ some f o r m of baseband pulse shaping f i l t e r followed by either a frequency modulator, o r a n a phase integrator followed by modulator, while PSK systems follow t h e pulse shaper with a phase modulator only. The pulse shaping circuitry may be either digital o r analog, o r a combination of both. Some implementations, in particular, are ideally suited to use in DSP environments [SI.

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111. PRS IN PAM SYSTEMS

with

= t h e i t h bit,

Fig. 2 i s a generalized scheme f o r implementation of partial response signaling [61. Correlation is introduced between transmitted symbols by summing appropriately weighted, delayed replicas of t h e input d a t a stream, thereby causing each transmitted symbol t o contain information f r o m more than one input digit. The result i s that intersymbol interference is introduced, t h e e f f e c t being t o shape t h e system spectrum. In addition, these schemes are more immune t o timing e r r o r s t h e result i s than memoryless systems t h a t d a t a may be transmitted at t h e Nyquist rat e. This can be easily a transversal filter achieved by cascaded with a lowpass f i l t e r , G ( o ) . The transversal f i l t e r has a frequency response F(w), where

h = t h e modulation index Tb = t h e bit interval g ( t ) = t h e baseband pulse shape Aulin and Sundberg [21 have shown t h a t M-ary full response CPM systems have improved s p e c t r a l properties and yield gain in Eb/N , compared t o MSK. The use of multilevel d a t a inputs as well as smoothing of t h e phase t r a j e c t o r y at transition instants yield a f a r more attractive trade-off between error performance and spectrum efficiency. Further improvements result f r o m using baseband pulses longer t h a n one symbol interval ie. p a r t i a l response CPM. Using t h i s approach, modulation schemes can be found t h a t are both bandwidth- and power-efficient [ 3 ] .
D i g i t a l Phase Modulation (DPM) [51 i s a simpler approach t o CPM t h a t allows easier recovery of c a r r i e r information and is better suited to digital implement at ion. This scheme does, create a slightly broader however, spectral main lobe.

n=O

Here T is t h e intersymbol spacing, and FID) is called t h e "system polynomial". Different choices of F(o) and G(o) are possible, each combination having i t s own performance characteristics. If G ( w ) is an ideal lowpass f i l t e r , t h e entirely by system is characterized F(w), o r t h e system polynomial, F ( D ) .

V. CORRELATIVE PSK (CORPSK) The CORPSK signal [ I ] i s of t h e f o r m @ ( t ) ) , where t h e signal Cos(W t + behaviour i s defined by manipulation of N t ) according t o a n input sequence {a } = {ao, al, ...a , ...); successive
m m

The system polynomial may be chosen t o set t h e number of output levels and t o provide suitable spectral nulls.
IV. CONTINUOUS PHASE MODULATION (CPM)

phase s h i f t s A@

occur at t = T , T t h e
s s

symbol period, according to three criteria: t h e phase i s continuous, and A@ is

m

given by

A@
Aulin, Rydbeck and Sundberg [ZI, [31 have studied in detail t h e behaviour of CPM systems. These systems are defined as follows [31:
C

= C .2Wn
m

= @((m+l)T 1 - NmT
m

1;

is t h e information-carrying t e r m

The phase function, $ ( t ) , is

m
P

t=-m

-03

and n is t h e number of phase s t a t e s , n a n integer. successive phase paths follow some correlation rule, so t h a t each s h i f t is determined by t h e c u r r e n t input level and t h a t f r o m at least one previous interval. Because of t h i s type of correlative coding, t h e r e must be more possible phase s h i f t s than input levels.

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(3) The phase path must be smoothed. This ensures good spectral efficiency, since t h e derivative of the phase function is then continuous.

r a t e performance curves.

Many d i f f e r e n t f o r m s of CORPSK e x i s t , depending on the correlation rule whereby C in criterion (1) i s derived.
m

All of these modulation schemes f a l l within t h e class of power-efficient modems. CORPSK(4-7,1+D) yields approximately 1 dB gain over t h e ideal DQPSK case, and a f u r t h e r 1 dB over TFM.
The ideal CORPSK demodulator is a coherent correlation receiver. Symbol-by-symbol detection i s possible, but yields a reduced e r r o r performance in t h e presence of noise. A practical approach is t o demodulate coherently into in-phase and quadrature signal components and then perform detection and decoding. Coherent c a r r i e r recovery i s required. Because CORPSK c r e a t e s a signal constellation of n symmetrically-located phase s t a t e s , t h i s can be effected by processing of t h e received RF signal with a nonlinearity of order n, and e x t r a c t i n g t h e resulting frequency component, formed at n times the carrier frequency, with a phase-locked loop. Symbol timing recovery may be performed either on t h e baseband signals, o r at t h e predetection s t a g e using t h e approach proposed f o r MSK by de Buda [81. VI. H A R D W A R E IMPLEMENTATION OF CORPSK The system CORPSK(4-7, 1+D) h a s a signal constellation as shown in Fig. 6. Clearly, f o r any one of t h e f o u r stationary phase points t h e r e are seven possible phase paths of less than 271 t h a t can be traversed ie. +n/2, +n, +3n/2. Each start- and end-point has, therefore, two possible phase paths. Because of t h e unique coding properties of t h e Duobinary r u l e [61, [71, only t h e path length a f f e c t s t h e value of t h e received and decoded signal.

The notation CORPSKfM-N, F(D)) i s used, where F(D) is a PRS system polynomial of t h e type described in Section 111. M i s t h e number of input levels, and N i s t h e number of possible phase s h i f t s . For example, CORPSK(4-7, l+D) represents a four-level input system with seven possible output phase s h i f t s following t h e Duobinary rule [71. The basic CORPSK modulator consists of a PRS encoder with precoder, followed by a lowpass premodulation f i l t e r and an angle modulator (see Fig. 3 1. This is equivalent t o a baseband p a r t i a l response system followed by angle modulation. The premodulation f i l t e r ensures t h a t t h e angle modulator follows a smooth phase path. If frequency modulation i s used, t h i s i s equivalent t o a phase modulator whose input is t h e integral of t h e p a r t i a l response signal. This is because frequency modulation has an inherent integrating e f f e c t . CORPSK generates a signal of t h e f o r m s(t) = Codw t + Q(t)). (5) C

By trigonometric identities, s(t) = COS(@ t)Cos(@(t))

- Sin(w t ) S i n ( @ ( t ) ) .

(6)

Clearly, CORPSK can be generated by modulating the required values of Cos(O(t)) and S i n ( @ ( t ) ) onto their respective quadrature carriers and summing them [ll, [51. The spectrum reported by Muilwijk [I1 f o r CORPSK(4-7, 1+D) is shown in Fig. 4, as i s t h a t of unfiltered QPSK (ie. constant-envelope) f o r reference, and f o r Tamed Frequency Modulation, o r TFM (CORPSK(2-5, (1+Dl2). Both schemes have necessary bandwidths similar t o QPSK, but f a r lower out-of-band signal levels. Fig. 5 shows t h e corresponding bit e r r o r

TRANSMITTER
This scheme was implemented in hardware according t o t h e approach shown in Fig. 7, derived f r o m (6) above. The phase tra jectory-shaping circuitry a binary to four-level comprises converter, mod-4 precoder and transversal f i l t e r ( t o implement F(D)). These are followed by a digital lowpass

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f i l t e r . Because of t h e duality between a frequency modulator and an integrator/phase modulator, t h e phase t r a j e c t o r y t h u s created has t o be t h e integral of t h e input PRS function. A factor-L oversampled lowpass f i l t e r impulse response is to be stored digitally and convolved in time with t h e seven-level PRS signal, which is in codeword f o r m (L = 8 o r 16). This f i l t e r impulse response and i t s t a i l extend over more t h a n one symbol interval, so any output phase value is a sum of t h e c u r r e n t impulse response and t h e t a i l of one o r more previous symbols, depending on t h e truncation length used. I t is t h i s summed function I t is t h a t has t o be integrated. permissible, therefore, t o integrate t h e individual phase symbols and then sum them ( t h e integral of a sum equals t h e sum of t h e t w o integrated terms). Consequently, t h e digital lowpass f i l t e r is, in practice, programmed with t h e integral of t h e impulse response. The in-phase and quadrature symbol channels are then created with sin and cos look-up tables in EPROM. These values are put into analog f o r m and lowpass filtered before being modulated onto their respective carriers and summed. Fig. 8 shows a computer generated eye diagram f o r one channel. An advantage t o using an oversampled baseband waveform i s t h a t t h e resulting spectrum, which has no sidelobes, r e p e a t s itself at multiples of the sampling frequency [51. Therefore, t h e cut-off points of t h e lowpass f i l t e r s used t o remove t h e repeated s p e c t r a can be placed higher in frequency t h a n t h e signal band-edge - problems caused by f i l t e r transition region group delays are t h e r e f o r e eradicated. Fig. 9 shows a computer-simulated signal spectrum, normalised in frequency. These r e s u l t s agree closely t o those of Muilwijk [ll.
RECEIVER

The carrier is regenerated by nonlinear processing of t h e bandpass signal with a precision full-wave rectifier and phase-Iocked loop. Our computer simulations have also indicated t h i s approach t o be effective. Symbol timing recovery i s effected by locking onto symbol rate components located symmetrically about t h e fourth-order carrier component, and multiplying them t o give a symbol-rate clock. The received signal is sampled at t h e symbol rate and successive samples compared t o give t h e transmitted symbol value; the decoder converts these symbols into a binary d a t a stream.
VII. CONCLUSIONS

Because of t h e i r immunity t o nonlinear signal operations, constant-envelope modulation schemes are a t t r a c t i v e f o r use in digital radio environments. Traditional systems such as QPSK and MSK have high out-of-band signal levels. Continuous Phase Modulation (CPMI and Correlative Phase S h i f t Keying (CORPSK) are t w o modulation approaches t h a t yield improved e r r o r and spectral performance. These systems have been briefly reviewed and some practical r e s u l t s f o r CORPSK have been shown.
REFERENCES
[ll

D. Muilwi jk, "Correlative Phase S h i f t Keying - A C l a s s of Constant E n v e l o p e Modulation Techniques," IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-29, No. 3, March 1981, pp. 226-236.

[21

T. Aulin and C.-E. Sundberg, "Continuous Phase Modulation - Part I : Full R e s p o n s e Signaling," IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-29, No. 3 , March 1981, pp. 196-209.
T. Aulin, N. Rydbeck and C.-E. Sundberg, "Continuous Phase - Part 11: Partial Modulation R e s p o n s e Signaling," IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-29, No. 3, pp. 210-225.

131

The received signal i s demodulated into in-phase and quadrature components with a regenerated carrier, sampled and decoded (see Fig. 10).

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I41 F. de Jager and C.B. Dekker, " Tamed Frequency Modulation A novel method to achieve spectrum economy in digital transmission,'' IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-26, No. 5, May 1978, pp. 534-542.

[SI

T. Maseng, "Digitally Phase Trans. Modulated ( D P M ) Signals," Commun., vol. COM-33, No. 9, Sept. 1985, pp. 911-918. P. Kabal and S. Pasupathy, "Partial-Response Signaling," IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-23, No. 9, Sept. 1975, pp. 921-934.

Fig.3. Basic CORPSK modulator s t r u c t u r e

[61

[71 A. Lender, "The Duobinary Technique

f o r high-speed data transmission," IEEE Trans. Commun. Electron., vol. 82, May 1963, pp. 214-218. 1 8 1 R. de Buda, "Coherent Demodulation of F S K with Low Deviation Ratio," IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-20, No. 3, June 1972, pp. 429-435.

Data

in

PULSE SHAPER

ANGLE MOD.

Signal out

Fig. 1.

Typical modulator s t r u c t u r e

Fig.2.

Generalized PRS system Fig.5. Bit e r r o r performance of CORPSK(4-7, 1+D), TFM and IIOPSK.

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*1

-1

-3lT12
Fig.8. Eye diagram of one channel.

Fig.6. CORPSK(4-7,1+D) signal constellation

cos wct

Data

PHASE
Cf-fc)/f6

SHAPER

Fig. 9. CORPSK(4-7, 1+D) signal spectrum.

Sin y t

Fig.7. Quadrature CORPSK modulator

Fig. 10. Demodulator s t r u c t u r e

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