Chapter-Four

Pulse Modulation
Objectives
After completing this chapter, the student will be able to:
 Differentiate CW and Pulse Modulation Techniques
 Differentiate Pulse Analog and Digital Modulation Techniques
 Define PAM, PWM, PPM, PCM, DM and DPCM
 Describe generation of PAM, PWM, PPM, PCM, DM and DPCM
Describe demodulation of PAM, PWM, PPM, PCM, DM and DPCM
 Describe the sampling process
 Pulse Modulation Schemes
Pulse modulation is a type of modulation in which the
signal is transmitted in the form of pulses. It can be used
to transmit analogue information. In pulse modulation,
continuous signals are sampled at regular intervals.
Pulse modulation can be classified into two major types:
 Analogue: Indication of sample amplitude is infinitely
variable
 Digital: Indicates sample amplitude at the nearest
predetermined level.
A block diagram showing the basic classification of
modulation techniques is given below:
Pulse Amplitude Modulation
Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)
It is the simplest form of Pulse Modulation. In this type of modulation,
each sample is made proportional to the amplitude of the signal at the
instant of sampling. The PAM signal follows the amplitude of the
original signal, as the signal traces out the path of the whole wave.
Here a signal which is sampled at Nyquist rate can be reconstructed by
passing it through an efficient Low Pass Filter (LPF) with exact cutoff
frequency. It is very easy to generate and demodulate PAM. This
technique transmits the data by encoding in the amplitude of a series
of signal pulses.
There are two types of PAM.
1.Single Polarity PAM: A fixed DC level is added to the signal so that
the signal is always positive.
2.Double Polarity PAM: Here the pulses are both positive and
negative.
Advantages of PAM
•Both Modulation and demodulation are simple.
•Easy construction of transmitter and receiver circuits.
Disadvantages of PAM
•Large bandwidth is required for transmission.
•More noise.
•Here the amplitude is varying. Therefore, the power required will be
more.
Applications of PAM
•Mainly used in Ethernet communication.
•Many microcontrollers use this technique in order to generate control
signals.
•It is used in Photo-biology.
•It acts as an electronic driver for LED circuits.
Pulse Width Modulation
Pulse Width Modulation is also known as pulse duration modulation (PDM). Here, as
the name suggests, the width of the pulse is varied in proportional to the amplitude of
the signal. Since the width is changing, the power loss can be reduced when compared
to PAM signals.

Advantages of PWM
•Low power consumption.
•It has an efficiency of about 90 percent.
•Noise interference is less.
•High power handling capacity.
Disadvantages of PWM
•The circuit is more complex.
•Voltage spikes can be seen.
•The system is expensive as it uses semiconductor devices.
•Switching losses will be more due to high PWM frequency.
Applications of PWM
•Used in encoding purposes in the telecommunication system.
•Used to control brightness in a smart lighting system.
•Helps to prevent overheating in LED’s while maintaining it’s brightness.
•Used in audio and video amplifiers.
Pulse Position Modulation
PPM can be obtained from PWM. This is done by getting rid of leading-edge and
bodies of PWM pulses. The main advantage of pulse position modulation is that it
requires constant transmitter power output while the major disadvantage is that it
depends upon transmitter-receiver synchronization.

Advantages of PPM
•As it has constant amplitude noise interference is less.
•We can easily separate signal from a noisy signal.
•Among all three types, it has the most power efficiency.
•Requires less power when compared to pulse amplitude modulation.
Disadvantages of PPM
•The system is highly complex.
•The system requires more bandwidth.
Applications of PPM
•It is used in the air traffic control system and telecommunication systems.
•Remote controlled cars, planes, trains use pulse code modulations.
•It is used to compress data and hence it is used for storage.
Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
This type of modulation is different from all modulations learnt so far. It is clear from
the block diagram given at the top that it is a type of digital modulation. That is the
signals here are sampled and sent in pulse form. A common feature among other
techniques is that pulse code modulation also uses sampling technique. In this case,
instead of sending a pulse train which is capable of continuously varying parameters,
this type of generator produces a series of numbers or digits. Each digit in it
represents the appropriate length of the sample at a particular instant.
Advantages of PCM
•It is mainly used in long distant communication.
•Transmitter efficiency is more.
•It has higher noise immunity when compared to other methods.
Disadvantages of PCM
•More bandwidth is required when compared to analogue systems.
•In this method encoding, decoding and quantisation of the circuit have to be done.
This makes it more complex.
Applications of PCM
•It is used in the satellite transmission system.
•It is also used in space communication.
•Used in Telephony.
•One of the recent applications is the compact disc.
 Pulse Code Modulation

Elements of PCM
(i) Sampling
(ii) Quantizing
(iii) Quantization noise
(iv) Encoding
 PCM
 Sampling
 The analog signal is divided into number parts at
equal intervals.
 The sampling frequency should be greater than the
twice the value of message frequency
 fs ≥ 2 fm
where fs is the sampling frequency
fm is the message signal frequency
Sampling Methods:
 Ideal – An impulse at each sampling instant.
 Natural – A pulse of Short width with varying
amplitude.
 Flat Top – Uses sample and hold, like natural but with
single amplitude value.
 PCM
 Quantization
 The actual value of sampled signal is converted to the
nearest standard value
 E.x - the signal amplitude 6.8 V is rounded off to 7
V
 The difference between the actual value and standard
value is called Quantization error
or Quantization noise
 PCM
 ENCODING
Generally the information is transmitted in 24 level
So that there are 16 levels and 4 binary places are required
A digit 7 becomes 0111 and it could be sent as oppp, where p=
pulse and o = no pulse
Actually it is sent as binary number back to front , that is 1110 or
pppo, to make demodulation easier
 PCM Generation

Flat samples Binary digital Line waveform

signal

Anti Sample A/D Line

And Quantizer LPF
Aliasing Converter Waveform
m (t) Filter Hold Generator
 Continued
 Aliasing : If the sampling condition is not met ,parts
of the spectra overlap, and once such overlap is
allowed to occur the spectra can no longer be
separated by filtering.
 Because the high frequency components in the
DSBSC spectrum appear in the low frequency part of
spectrum. This effect is called Aliasing.
 To avoid aliasing the modulating signal is passed
through an anti aliasing filter
 Companding
 Companding is a technique that is used in the transmission of
speech signals to reduce the effects of channel noise.
 The speech signal is compressed in volume range relative to a
fixed level.
 At the output of the channel the signal is expanded by the same
ratio referred to the same fixed level.
 The term compander is used to describe the unit that does the
compression and expansion.
 The main advantage of companding is that it reduces the “idle”
noise on the channel, which allows for an increase in the total
number of channels on a multiplexed carrier system.
 Differential PCM
 Differential pulse code modulation is a technique in
which the difference between samples is encoded in
binary
 The reason for employing DPCM is that speech
signals do not change drastically from sample to
sample and therefore the difference values can be
encoded using fewer bits
Block diagram of PCM
 Delta Modulation
 Delta modulation is a special case of DPCM in which only the
polarity of the difference signal is encoded as output
 The main advantage of delta modulation is that the circuitry
for both the transmitter and the receiver is very simple
 The input waveform is sampled at intervals determined by the
clock pulse
 At each sample time, we check to see if the signal amplitude
has increased or decreased since the last sample
 The modulator circuit replies by giving out logic levels (or
binary signals) at its output.
 A logic level 1 output means the signal has increased.
 A logic level 0 output means the signal has decreased.
 (ignore the situation where the signal stays at a constant level)
 Delta Modulation
 If the difference between the analog input and
the feedback signal is positive , this is encoded
as binary 1 which is transmitted as a positive
voltage pulse
 And if negative, as a binary 0 , which is
transmitted as a negative voltage pulse
 Delta Modulation
 The output from the modulator is therefore a series of
logic levels – often called a binary stream – of ones
and zeroes to indicate the rise and fall of the
waveform since the previous sample was taken
DM Waveform
 DM Transmitter

Clock pulses

comparator
m (t)
Po (t)
Є (t)
m’ (t)
∫
 DM Transmitter

 At the transmitter , one input to the multiplier is a periodic

train of unipolar impulses
 The other input is the output from the comparator, which
consists fixed amplitude pulses whose polarity depends on the
difference signal at the comparator input
 The feedback signal m’(t) is the integral of the multiplier
output
 The polarity is positive if the analog signal m(t) is greater than
the feedback signal m’(t)
 The polarity is negative if the analog signal m(t) is less than
the feedback signal m’(t)
Delta Modulation
 Delta Modulator

 A delta modulator consists of an up – down counter

whose output is fed back via an integrator and
compared with the input signal
 If the integrated output level is larger than the input
then the next output digit is a one and if smaller a
zero
 DM Receiver

Po(t)
m’’(t)
Reconstruction
∫
filter
 DM Receiver

 At the receiver, a regenerator is used to recover the po

(t) impulse waveform , which is integrated to produce
signal which is transmitted at the transmitter
 The analog output m’’(t) is recovered from the
integrator output through the use of a low pass filter
Comparison between DM and PCM
 DM has better signal to quantizing noise than PCM
 DM has better resolution compared to PCM
 DM signal is more resistant to transmission noise
causing more bit error than in PCM
 At lower bit rates ,DM is better than PCM but at
higher bit rates PCM is better
 Circuitry for DM is less complex compared to that of
PCM