Background:-

Modulation is process of varying one or more properties of a waveform called the carrier according to
the characteristic of another waveform called the modulating signal or the message. The three
parameters of sinusoidal carrier that can be varied are amplitude, phase and frequency. Need for
modulation arises because of the smaller frequency of baseband signal, for example to transmit an
audio signal of 20 kHz we would need an antenna of the size of about 3KMs which is impractical. So we
need to convert this baseband signal into narrow band pass signal. Modulation helps us to achieve this
objective. So the process of converting information so that it can be successfully transmitted through a
medium is called modulation.

Digital Modulation:-

The purpose of the digital modulation is to transmit a stream of digital bit stream over an analog pass
band channel. In it we change one of the characteristics of an analog signal based on the information in
digital data. Fig (1) shows the concept of digital modulation.

Fig (1) Digital Modulation

The most fundamental digital modulation techniques used are:-

i) Amplitude Shift Keying:- In amplitude shift keying the amplitude of the carrier signal is
varied to represent data.
ii) Frequency Shift Keying:- In frequency shift keying the frequency of the carrier signal is
varied to represent data
iii) Phase Shift Keying:- In phase shift keying the phase of the carrier signal is varied to
represent data.

The modulation types can either be classified as linear modulation or non-linear modulation. First
we will discuss them briefly and then we will discuss non-linear modulation techniques in detail.

i) Linear Modulation.
In linear modulation techniques we have a linear relationship between the data symbols and
transmitted signals. In this scheme a modulator maps a digital information sequence into an
analog signal following the principals of superposition. Some of the examples of linear
 modulation are Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and Quadrature Shift Keying
(QSK). Some of the other characteristics of linear modulation schemes are:-
a) Information is encoded in phase or amplitude. The linear modulation schemes are more
susceptible to variations from fading and interference because the data is encoded in
phase and amplitude
b) Offset modulation avoids zero crossing of phase trajectories.
c) Pulse shaping improves spectral properties.
d) Optimal mapping reduces bit error rate.
e) Linear modulation schemes are typically more spectrally efficient that is they come are
able to come closer to the capacity
f) Linear amplifiers used for linear modulation are more expansive and less power
efficient.

ii) Non-Linear Modulation:-

In non-linear modulation the principal of superimposition is not followed. In this type of
modulation the output signal does not depend upon linear signal in a linear fashion. Some of
the examples of Non-linear modulation schemes are Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) and
Continuous Phase Modulation (CPM). Some of the characteristics of Non-Linear modulation
scheme are:-
a) Information is encoded in signal frequency.
b) Use continuous phase frequency modulation. Since frequency modulation has a
constant signal envelope, non-linear modulation is also called constant envelope
modulation.
c) Bandwidth depends upon both ∆𝑓𝑐 and 𝐵𝑢 .
d) Non-linear modulation schemes are more resistant to variations. So they are not
affected much by fading and interference.
e) Non-linear amplifiers used for non-linear modulation are not very expansive and high
power efficient.
f) Compared to Linear modulation they have small spectral efficiency.

Non-linear modulation scheme is preferred in cellular communication because it offer

constant envelope, narrow power spectra, good error rate performance etc.

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK):-

Modulation techniques that use two frequencies to represent one and zeros are called Frequency Shift
Keying (FSK). In traditional BFSK we use signals with two different frequencies to denote binary 0 or
binary 1 over a time period of Tb. For these two signals we can write,

2𝐸𝑏
𝑆𝑜 𝑡 = 𝑇𝑏
cos 2𝜋𝑓𝑜 𝑡
 2𝐸𝑏
𝑆1 𝑡 = cos 2𝜋𝑓1 𝑡
𝑇𝑏

Continuous Phase Frequency Shift Keying (CPFSK) is a case of Continuous phase modulation (CPM). In
case of non-orthogonal FSK switching abruptly from one frequency to another can cause sharp
transients which extend the bandwidth of signal in an undesired manner. This drawback is avoided in
special case of FSK called minimum shift keying.

Minimum Shift Keying:-

MSK is a special case of binary continuous phase frequency shift keying (FSK) with a modulation index of
0.5. A modulation index of 0.5 corresponds to the minimum frequency spacing that allows two FSK
signals to be coherently orthogonal & the name minimum shift keying implies the minimum frequency
separation (i.e. bandwidth) that allows orthogonal detection.

Fig (2)

With MSK every symbol waveform starts and ends with a zero crossing of the same direction e.g. from
negative to positive values as shown in Fig (2) b. In this case adjacent waveforms never execute phase
steps. This reduces the bandwidth required to transmit the FSK signal. Such FSK signals in which we have
continuous phase are known as Continuous Phase Frequency Shift Keying (CPFSK) signals. As already
mentioned advantage of such signals is that they can be transmitted over a band limited channel as
discontinuities in a signal introduce wideband frequency components.

MSK is a special case of binary FSK. First of all it uses the minimum spacing between the two signal
frequencies f1 and f2 in other words they are separated by half the frequency 1/2Ts, so the difference
between logical 0 and logical 1 is always equal to half the data rate. Moreover MSK uses continuous-
phase frequency shift keying (CPFSK) which means that the phase of the modulated carrier is continuous
at the symbol boundaries. MSK has one of two possible frequencies over any symbol interval:
𝑘 −1
𝜋𝑥𝑘 𝜋 𝜋
𝑆 𝑡 = 𝐴𝐶𝑜𝑠 2𝜋𝑓𝑐 + 𝑡+ 𝑥𝑛 − (𝑘𝑥𝑛)
2𝑇 2 2
𝑛 =−∞

The constellation diagram for MSK is shown in figure(3) below:-

Q-Phase

-1

-1 1

I-Phase

Fig (3)

Some of the advantages offered by MSK signals are:-

i) MSK signals have continuous phase in all cases.

ii) MSK baseband signals are smooth.
iii) MSK waveform has no amplitude variations.
iv) Side lobs of MSK are comparatively small.

Despite of all this advantages MSK signal cannot be used in applications where extremely narrow
bandwidth and sharp cut –offs are required. This is because of the reason that the main lobe of the MSK
is wide as shown in fig(4) and hence it cannot be used for multiuser communication.

Fig(4)Power spectral densities of MSK and QPSK

GMSK:

Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) is a form of continuous-phase FSK in which the phase is changed
between symbols to provide a constant envelope. It is a popular alternative to QPSK. Because of its
power and spectral efficiency it is employed in GSM systems. GMSK is a modulation scheme in which the
phase of the carrier is instantaneously varied by the modulating signal.

In GMSK a Gaussian filter of an appropriate bandwidth is used before the modulation stage. This pre-
modulation filter has following properties:-

i) Narrow bandwidth and sharp cutoff.

ii) Lower overshoot impulse response.
iii) Preservation of the filter output pulse area.

The first property gives GMSK modulation its spectral efficiency. It also improves its noise immunity
when demodulating. The second property gives GMSK low phase distortion. This is particularly
important when receiver is demodulating the signal down to baseband. The third property ensures the
coherence of GMSK signal. So a signal with low side lobs and narrow main lobes is generated. The time
domain response of the filter is shown in below,

𝑘1 𝐵 2 2 2
𝑕 𝑡 = 𝑒 −𝑘 1 𝐵 𝑡
𝜋
𝜋
Where 𝑘1 = and B is half power bandwidth,
2𝑙𝑛 2

In GMSK we use a Gaussian pulse shape in contrast to MSK where we use a half-sinusoid. The GMSK
modulated carrier is better at transitions that’s why it is widely used in cellular communication. The
GMSK signal is defined by equation.

𝑇 𝑇
1 𝑡−2 𝑡+2
𝑔 𝑡 = 𝑄 2𝜋𝐵𝑏 + 𝑄 2𝜋𝐵𝑏
2𝑇 ln 2 ln 2

𝑢2
1 ∞ −
Where, 𝑄 𝑡 = 2𝜋 𝑡
𝑒𝑥𝑝 2 𝑑𝑢, 𝐵𝑏 is the 3dB bandwidth of a low pass
Gaussian filter, T is the symbol period.

It should be mentioned that as GMSK is a variant of MSK so the constellation diagram of GMSK is same
as MSK.

GMSK Modulation:

Following steps are involved in GMSK Modulation:

a) We first create a NRZ sequence from input digital data.

b) Create N samples per second.
 c) Integrate the NRZ sequence.
d) Convolute with a Gaussian function.
e) Calculate the corresponding I and Q components.
f) Multiply corresponding I and Q component with cos(nwo) and –sin(nwo) respectively.
g) Add the two resulting signals.

Fig(5) GMSK Modulation Block Diagram

GMSK Demodulation:

As GMSK is basically a FSK signal so like any other FSK signal we cannot demodulate it directly. To
demodulate and FSK signal we normally use three methods:-

a) FM to AM conversion also called FM discriminator.

b) Phase shift discrimination.
c) Zero-crossing detection.
d) Frequency Feedback.

Phase shift discrimination method is shown in fig.

Fig(6) GMSK Demodulator

In this demodulation scheme the received signal is first converted to a complex baseband signal to
obtain the In-Phase (I) and Quadrature-phase (Q) signal components and these components are used to
retrieve the information. The two components are then passed through low pass filter to eliminate the
high frequency products caused by mixing. Now in order to retrieve the original NRZ signal we need to
differentiate the output of arc tan block.