FM Bandwidth

and FM Generation

Lesson 12
EEE 352 Analog Communication Systems
Mansoor Khan
EE Department
CIIT Islamabad Campus
Frequency Modulation
 Frequency Modulation
• The magnitude and direction of the
frequency shift (Δf) is proportional to the
amplitude of the modulating signal.

• The rate at which the frequency changes

are occurring is equal to the frequency of
the modulating signal (fm).

• (Δf) is called the frequency deviation.

 Phase Modulation
• The magnitude and direction of the phase shift (Δө)
is proportional to the amplitude of the modulating
signal.

• The rate at which the phase changes are occurring

is equal to the frequency of the modulating signal
(fm).

• (Δө) is called the phase deviation

 Mathematical Analysis
For Phase: e = Ec cos[ωct + KpEicos(ωit)]

For Frequency: e = Ec cos[ωct + (KfEi/ ωi)sin(ωit)]

Kp = Deviation Sensitivity of the Phase Modulator

Kf = Deviation Sensitivity of the Frequency Modulator
 Frequency Modulation Waveform
Mathematical Analysis
In FM, the message signal m(t) controls the frequency fc of the carrier. Consider the
carrier

then for FM we may write:

FM signal ,where the frequency deviation

will depend on m(t).

Given that the carrier frequency will change we may write for an instantaneous
carrier signal

where i is the instantaneous angle = and fi is the instantaneous frequency.

Bessel Function
 Examples from the graph

 = 0: When  = 0 the carrier is unmodulated and J0(0) = 1, all other Jn(0) = 0, i.e.

 = 2.4: From the graph (approximately)

J0(2.4) = 0, J1(2.4) = 0.5, J2(2.4) = 0.45 and J3(2.4) = 0.2
 Significant Sidebands – Spectrum.

As may be seen from the table of Bessel functions, for values of n above a certain
value, the values of Jn() become progressively smaller. In FM the sidebands are
considered to be significant if Jn()  0.01 (1%).
Although the bandwidth of an FM signal is infinite, components with amplitudes
VcJn(), for which Jn() < 0.01 are deemed to be insignificant and may be ignored.

Example: A message signal with a frequency fm Hz modulates a carrier fc to produce

FM with a modulation index  = 1. Sketch the spectrum.

n Jn(1) Amplitude Frequency

0 0.7652 0.7652Vc fc
1 0.4400 0.44Vc fc+fm fc - fm
2 0.1149 0.1149Vc fc+2fm fc - 2fm
3 0.0196 0.0196Vc fc+3fm fc -3 fm
4 0.0025 Insignificant
5 0.0002 Insignificant
 Significant Sidebands – Spectrum.

As shown, the bandwidth of the spectrum containing significant

components is 6fm, for  = 1.
 Significant Sidebands – Spectrum.

The table below shows the number of significant sidebands for various modulation
indices () and the associated spectral bandwidth.
 No of sidebands  1% of Bandwidth
unmodulated carrier
0.1 2 2fm
0.3 4 4fm
0.5 4 4fm
1.0 6 6fm
2.0 8 8fm
5.0 16 16fm
10.0 28 28fm

e.g. for  = 5,
16 sidebands
(8 pairs).
 Carson’s Rule for FM Bandwidth.

An approximation for the bandwidth of an FM signal is given by

BW = 2(Maximum frequency deviation + highest modulated
frequency)

Bandwidth  2(f c  f m ) Carson’s Rule

 Narrowband and Wideband FM

Narrowband FM NBFM

From the graph/table of Bessel functions it may be seen that for small , (  0.3)
there is only the carrier and 2 significant sidebands, i.e. BW = 2fm.

FM with   0.3 is referred to as narrowband FM (NBFM) (Note, the bandwidth is

the same as DSBAM).

Wideband FM WBFM

For  > 0.3 there are more than 2 significant sidebands. As  increases the number of
sidebands increases. This is referred to as wideband FM (WBFM).
For FM Modulator with frequency deviation of 10
kHz, modulating signal frequency of 10 kHz, Carrier
amplitude voltage of 50V and Carrier frequency of
500 kHz, determine the following:

(a) Minimum Bandwidth using Bessel table

(b) Minimum Bandwidth using Carson’s rule
(c) Amplitudes of the side frequencies and plot the
output frequency spectrum
a)From Bessel function table, m=1 yields three sets of
significant sidebands. Thus bandwidth is
f 10kHz
m  1
f m 10kHz
B  2(3 10kHz)  60kHz
b) Approx. minimum bandwidth is given by Carson’s
rule. So

B  2(10kHz  10kHz)  40kHz

c)
J 0  0.77(50)  38.5V
J1  0.24(50)  12V
J 2  0.11(50)  5.5V
J 3  0.02(50)  1V
38.5V

12V 12V

5.5V 5.5V

1V 1V

470 480 490 500 510 520 530

Armstrong Indirect FM Transmitter
Demodulation of FM (cont)
Bandpass Limiter