Wireless Audio Signal Transmission : QPSK

Ahmad Afham Bin Hussien, Muhammad Fadhli Bin Ab Raman Noorsalizah Adibah Binti Umin, Nur Amalina Binti Abd Rashid
Abstract This study is related to digital
communication system wireless transmission using
QPSK modulation. Using GNU Radio Companion
(GRC) as well as Universal Software Radio Peripheral,
audio signal was modulated, transferred through air
then demodulated. In order to transmit the audio with
less noise disturbance, certain condition must be
achieved that is its frequency carrier and gain. As a
result, the audio signal that was transmitted through
air were received well with less noise disturbance. In
this paper, the main discussion would be regarding
effects of the distance between two antennas, high and
low frequency and gain.
I.

INTRODUCTION

Generally, the local communication was done over wire,

as this presented the low cost and the effective way of
ensuring a reliable transfer of information. However, for
long distance communication transmission of information
over radio waves was needed. Therefore, the modulation
using wireless communication have been introduced.

the receiver. Multipath delay causes the information

symbols represented in a received signal to overlap, which
confuses the receiver. This is often referred to as
intersymbol interferences (ISI). Because the shape of the
signal conveys the information being transmitted, the
receiver will make mistakes when demodulating the signal's
information. If the delays are great enough, bit errors in the
packet will occur. The receiver won't be able to distinguish
the symbols and interpret the corresponding bits correctly.
Therefore the received signal cannot be demodulated
correctly.
Since there is possibility an error occurred during
transmission, discussion on some criteria based on the
objectives that have been made to solve the problem. The
objectives of this project are, to understand the basic
concept of digital communication system, the time-domain
and frequency-domain analysis, the effect of the noise over
the digital communication system, understad the signal
representation by observing In-phase and Quadrature
data/signal, and the use of Constellation Diagram.
II.

Modulation is the process of facilitating the transfer of

information over o medium. Voice cannot be sent very far
by screaming. To extend the range of sound, we need to
modulate it with the carrier before transmit it through a
medium. Differential phase shift keying is a non-coherent
form of phase shift keying which avoids the need for a
coherent reference signal at the receiver. Non-coherent
receivers are relatively easy and cheap to build, and hence
are widely used in wireless communications.
In wireless communication, multipath propagation
occurs when radio frequency (RF) signal takes different
paths when propagating from a source to a destination node.
While the signal is en route, walls, chairs, desks, and other
items get in the way and cause the signal to bounce in
different directions. A portion of the signal may go directly
to the destination, and another part may bounce from a chair
to the ceiling, and then to the destination. As a result, some
of the signal will encounter delay and travel longer paths to

EXPERIMENT

A. Procedure
To setup the instrument, a thumb drive that contain
Ubuntu OS was attached into USB port at the computer
before the computer was on. The GNU Radio Companion
was already installed inside it. The USRP board was then
connected to the computer via cable. The block diagram
that need to be build and edit were downloaded from the
digital communication lab web site named QPSK-TX and
QPSK-RX.
When using a cable transmission, same QPSK-TX and
QPSK-RX file were used. The other variable was remain
the same. The graph were monitored and recorded as
reference.

used to show the data: amplitude versus time graph, power

versus frequency graph and constellation graph. Using
three different condition: antenna varies, frequency varies
and gain varies, the data was analyzed.
As the antenna varies, the only data that was considered
as significant was the amplitude changes. As the distance
increase, the amplitude decrease.

Figure 1 QPSK-TX

Figure 3 shows amplitude versus time graph when the

antenna distance was 40 inches

Figure 2 QPSK-RX
When using antenna, same file were used.
However, the center frequency at transmitter and receiver
were changed to several values. The other variable was
remained the same. The result from the receiver graph was
recorded. This is to obtain data by varying the frequencies.
To obtain data when changing the gain, same file
were used. This time, the frequency was set to default. Only
the gain at both transmitter and receiver were change. At
the end, the graph were recorded.
When the antenna distance were set as
manipulated variable, both frequency and gain were set to
default and no changes were made to this variable. Every
different distance, the receiver graph were recorded.

Figure 4 shows amplitude versus time graph when the

antenna's distance was 210 inches
Different for frequency varies. All three graphs
gives significant result which need to be further discuss. As
the antennas distance and gain become constant variable,
the frequency becomes the manipulated variable.

B. Data Analysis
Data analysis was computed and shown using GNU
Radio Companion software. Three different graphs were

Figure 5 shows three graphs for when the frequency was

set at 1GHz

Figure 6 shows three graphs for when the frequency was

set at 1.5GHz
Figure 9 shows when the gain at transmitter is 80dB and
at receiver is at 0dB

Figure 7 shows three graphs for when the frequency was

set at 2GHz
Figure 10 shows when the gain at transmitter was 80dB
and at the receiver was 50dB

Figure 8 shows three graphs for when the frequency was

set at 2.4GHz
All these data was analyzed further to obtain the
significant information that are needed and discard the rest.
It is further explained why and what caused such different
in constellation, power and others.
Gain were varied such as 80dB at transmitter with
0dbB/25dbB/75dB. Other than that, both transmitter and
receiver gain was set at the same value 70dB, or
80dB/60dB/40dB at transmitter and constant 50dB at the
receiver.

Figure 11 shows when both transmitter and receiver gain

was 70dB

Figure 12 show when transmitter's gain was 40dB while

50dB at the receiver

III.

DISCUSSION

A Antenna distance
Antenna distance was set to be the manipulated
variable whereas the frequency was set at 2GHz, gain at the
transmitter was 80dB while at the receiver 50dB as the
constant variable. The value were used for the distance: 40inches and 210-inches
Comparing both Figure 1 and Figure 2, it is clear
that having a longer distance causes the amplitude to
decrease. As the distance is further apart, the amplitude
continue decrease however the signal are still being
transmitted. The data was interfered with other signal
through the air. Thus a small noise interference can be
heard. Throughout the experiment where the antenna acts
as the constant variable, the distance used was 40-inches as
the amplitude is higher.

Figure 13 Ideal constellation graph

B Frequency Varies
In this experiment, the frequency was set to be the
manipulated variable while the gain is fixed, which is for
the transmitter is 80 dB while for the receiver is 50 dB. The
frequency used for this experiment is 1GHz, 1.5GHz,
2GHz and 2.4GHz.Based on the result, it can be seen that
the best result is when the frequency is 2GHz while the
frequency that give more noise is at 1GHz which can be
seen at figures 14 ,15 and 12 below. The reason that have
been discover that give the different results is the 2GHz is
not in the range of the freeband compared to the other
frequencies that being used in this experiment. Therefore,
the interference occurred during the transmission of the
signal is low and the result in less noise. Freeband
frequency have high interference because there are being
used widely. For example, the 2.4GHz is the frequency for
the wi-fi. As known, now the wi-fi have been used widely
by users. So to transmit data through this frequency will
resulted in high interference and produce more noise. The
bandwidth used is also low. It also can being seen at the
frequency vs power (db) graph in figure 16 that the signal
to ratio (SNR) is low rather than in figure 17. In figure 16
shows that the actual signal is same with the noise signal.
It shows that, the 1GHz have more interference rather than
the 2GHz.

Figure 14 Constellation graph for 2GHz

Figure 15 Constellation graph for 1GHz

transmitting gain was fixed to 80dB. The results were

recorded from the experiment. Gain varies affect the
transmission of the signal through the antenna. The result
were tabulated as below.
GAIN
TRANSMITTER
40

GAIN
RECEIVER
50

60

50

80

50

70

70

80

80

25

80

75

Figure 16 SNR Graph for 1GHz

RESULT
Refer
to
appendix 1
Refer
to
appendix 2
Refer
to
appendix 3
Refer
to
appendix 4
Refer
to
appendix 5
Refer
to
appendix 6
Refer
to
appendix 7

Table 1

Figure 18 QPSK Diagram theory of

constellation

Figure 17 SNR Graph for 2GHz

C Gain varies
Gain is the ability of the two port circuit to
increase the power or amplitude of a signal from the input
to the output port by adding energy from the power supply
to the signal [1]. By increasing the gain, the amplitude of
the transmitting signal will also increase but as the signal
increase, the noise in the transmission will also increase.
The experiment was conducted by varying the gain in
USRP of the transmitter and receiver to find the most
suitable gain for the transmitter and receiver. When the
gain in transmitter were varied, the receiver gain was fixed
to 50dB and when the receiver gain was varied, the

For constellation diagram, more the constellation

diagram scattered, the more noise represented in received
signal. When the transition of one symbol to another
effected by noise, the diagram of the transition process
perform a lot of dot around the diagram rather at the at the
location of the symbols (00,01,10,11) where this symbols
represent the QPSK modulation [2] [3]. When the diagram
less effected by noise, the diagrams produced performing a
ring diagram following the theory of QPSK diagram and
the dot will be more allocated at the symbols.
For the frequency graph, it represents the signal to
noise ratio (SNR). It shows the signal ratio compare to the
noise. The signal frequency for this experiment is from 50kHz to 50kHz. The signal represent at this region is the
input signal from the transmitter while the signal not in the

region represent as the noise. The higher the input signal

compare to the noise, the better gain for the experiment.
Refer to appendix 1, appendix 5 and appendix 7,
the graph almost look the same where the constellation
diagram are very scattered, and the power (frequency
graph) almost forming the horizontal line. These show that
the gains are not suitable for the experiment as the noises
that are present in the experiment are very high compare to
the signal. Thus this show that none of these gain varied
were suitable.
For appendix 2, appendix 3, appendix 4, and
appendix 6 the dots only at the place where the transition
of the symbols occur although the diagram still effected by
noise, but in a lower quantity. There are not so much
different if compare to constellation diagram and hard to
tell which one is better, but if compare using frequency
graph, it is much easier. The SNR in appendix 3 is the
highest among all, show that the signal transmitted is very
high compare to noise transmitted. Thus the quality of the
signal is highest among all other gain. So, the best gain for
the transmitter is 80 and the gain for the receiver is 50.

D Others
Transmitter
Transmitter system sent a binary data in a group
of chunks. Each chunk is mapped to a particular waveform
called a symbol which is sent across the channel after
modulation by the carrier. Modulation is a process of
encoding information from a message source in a manner
suitable for transmission. It involves translating a baseband
message signal to a passband signal. The baseband signal
is called the modulating signal and the passband signal is
called the modulated signal. Modulation can be done by
varying certain characteristics of carrier waves according
to the message signal. Demodulation is the reciprocal
process of modulation which involves extraction of
original baseband signal from the modulated passband
signal.
Receiver
Given that the preferred method of receiving
phase-shift-keying (PSK) signals is through a Costas loop,
the analog design must be ported to the digital domain. This
process involves converting mixers to multipliers, analog
filters to digital filters, and using DDS modules instead of
local oscillators. The first step is to demodulate the signal.
Next, the signal is filtered and integrated. Then, phase

tracking techniques are used to lock the receivers carrier

and phase to the transmitted signal. A high specification
piece of equipment capable of producing 200MHz RF
bandwidth at a carrier frequency of up to 3GHz. It also
features many modulation schemes and a customisable
baud rate, allowing for controlled testing. The device is
also capable of modifying the phase offset, however any
modification to this value is almost non-detectable at the
receiver. Simultaneously, the estimated bit pattern is
aligned to the system clock. LMS equalizer is used to
efficiently reduce additive white Gaussian noise with
minimum or no error.
Noise effect
In reality noise cannot be avoided in
telecommunication, but it can only be reduced by using a
several method. Such as, increased gain and build the
instrument that disturbed less noise. In the lab, noise still
occurred because of the wireless signal around the
building, from the other digital device such cellular phone
and many other disturbance. The instrument also can
become the problem, it is not the expensive instrument, so
it not so good to transmit and receive signal. According to
the theory SNR when increased the gain noise will become
less, so in the experiment the gain was increased with a
certain limits that the USRP board range.

IV REFERENCES
[1] Graf, Rudolf F. (1999). Modern Dictionary of
Electronics (7 ed.). Newnes. p. 314. ISBN 0080511988.
[2] Constellation Diagram. (n.d.). Retrieved from
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_diagram
[3] GNU Radio Tutorials: Part 4 - Phase-Shift Keying
(PSK), Constellations & Auto-correlation. (2012, June
10). Retrieved from Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMEyN_lvaiE
[4] GNU Radio Tutorial, Retrieved on 12th March 2015
https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/GNU
RadioCompanion
[5] USRP Board, Retrieved on 19th March 2015
https://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/GNU
RadioCompanion