Bandpass signalling

Thus far only baseband signalling has been considered: an information source
is usually a baseband signal.
Some communication channels have a bandpass characteristic, and will not
propagate baseband signals. In these cases, modulation is required to impart
the source information onto a bandpass signal with a carrier frequency f c by
the introduction of amplitude and/or phase perturbations.
Bandpass digital communication systems involve modulating a baseband
digital signal onto a carrier using AM, PM, FM, or some generalised
technique. The most common binary bandpass signalling techniques are
• On-off keying, which consists of keying a sinusoidal carrier on and off
with a unipolar binary signal
• Binary phase-shift keying, which consists of shifting the phase of a
sinusoidal carrier 0◦ or 180◦ with a unipolar binary signal
• Frequency-shift keying, which consists of shifting the frequency of a
sinusoidal carrier from a mark frequency (sending a 1) to a space
frequency (sending a 0) according to the baseband digital signal.

Examples of signals generated using these techniques are shown below:

1
 Baseband unipolar

Baseband polar

OOK signal

BPSK signal

FSK signal

2
Amplitude-shift keying
Recall that amplitude modulation of the baseband signal m(t) involves forming
the signal n o
j ωc t
s(t) = Re g(t)e ,
where the complex envelope of the signal is either

g(t) = Am(t)

in the case of a suppressed carrier (or otherwise g(t) = A[1 + m(t)]). These
equations reduce to the representation for the AM signal

s(t) = Am(t) cos(ωc t).

An on-off keying signal is similarly represented in the form above, but in this
case the modulating signal m(t) is a unipolar baseband digital signal. If we
make the assumption that the baseband signal is comprised of rectangular
pulses, then we have

1 symbol 1
m(t) =
0 symbol 0.

Thus the modulated signal can simply be created by gating the carrier with the
on-off baseband signal.
In general, amplutude-shift keying is similar except that m(t) is not required to
be zero for one of the symbols. For example, the modulating function m(t)
may be chosen to take on two different nonzero values when a 0 or a 1 are
transmitted.
The PSD of the modulated signal consists of two shifted replicas of the
complex envelope, one centred on f c and the other on f c . The bandwidth of
the modulated signal is therefore twice that of the baseband signal.
In the event that the receiver has access to (or can estimate) the edges of the bit

3
intervals, coherent or synchronous detection can be performed. The optimal
decoder is then the matched filter, with impulse response

h(t) = A cos(ωc (T − t))

in the case of OOK, where T is the signal interval. The output of this matched
filter upon receipt of a 1 is then
Z T
A2 cos2 (ωc t)dt = A2 T /2.
0

The output is nominally zero upon receipt of a 0, except for the effects of
noise. The noise at the output of the filter is Eη/2, where η/2 is the PSD of the
noise at the receiver input.
Under the assumption of equal bit probabilities, the probability of a bit error in
this case can be obtained in the same way as for baseband signalling as
  s
E E
P = erfc √ = erfc .
2 Eη/2 2η

The average signal power is then S = 1/2( A 2 /2), and assuming that
T = 1/(2B) the noise power is N = ηB. The bit error probability can
therefore be written as r
S
P = erfc .
2N
Thus the performance of an ASK system is equivalent to an on-off baseband
system in terms of the SNR required for a given error rate.
A coherent receiver for an OOK signal can also be developed, and involves
translating the signal back to baseband (or to an intermediate frequency), and
performing matched filtering on the result. Such a system is demonstrated
below:

4
 Receiver

Lowpass or Sample Threshold

matched and comparator
filter hold

Sfrag replacements
cos(ωc t) Baseband analogue signal

The performance of this receiver is essentially the same as for matched

filtering on the modulated signal.
There is no requirement that the signal m(t) be limited to taking on either the
value zero or one. In fact, any baseband digital signal waveform can be used,
and modulated up to the carrier frequency prior to transmission. The results
here indicate that the process of modulating the signal has no effect on the
performance of the bandpass system over that of the baseband system.
If bit synchronisation is not achievable, or simplicity is a criterion, then
envelope detection can be used to recover the baseband signal from the
modulated carrier. For equiprobable 0’s and 1’s the probability of error is
s
1 1 E
P = e−E/4η + erfc .
2 2 2η

For error probabilities of P < 10−4 the required SNRs are such that there is
only about a 1dB penalty for the use of envelope detection.
The performance of OOK is generally poorer than that of other modulation
systems, and it is seldom used in practice.