ELEC/TELE/PHTN 4123

Electrical/Telecommunications Design Proficiency

Semester 1, 2014

Lab 3: Communications Systems Design

Christopher Vergara, Karthik Manimaran

Design Requirements
We are required to design a data transmission system to transmit binary data
over a channel that will be modelled using a circuit. This circuit will simulate a
channel response. The binary data will be in the form of a binary file and the
outputs and inputs to the PC will be achieved using the sound card and NI DAQ.
The design is limited to the physical layer that is to the modulator and
demodulator and is not concerned with any higher protocols or error detection
and correction. The general representation of the data transmission system is
shown in the FIGURE 1 below. The design of the data transmission system can
use any coding and/or modulation schemes. The goal is to maximise the bit rate
whilst adhering to a minimum bit error rate of 0.01 or 1%.

Figure1: Data Transmission System

The requirements of the system are as follows:

1. To build the circuit that will serve to simulate the channel model. The
circuit is shown in FIGURE 2 and the high level channel model is shown in
FIGURE 3
2. To analyse and model the channel.
3. To set the potentiometer so that the RMS noise amplitude is 0.2V.

Figure2: Communications Channel Schematic

Figure3: Channel Model

In addition no advanced Matlab functions are to be used. The design is to be

completed within 3 weeks.
Detailed Design
Channel modelling

In order to be able to implement the modulation scheme, the channel model

must first be obtained. An understanding of the characteristics of the channel not
only inuences the design of the transmitter and receiver, but it also places
limits on the data rates that can be achieved.

To model the channel a software package (circuit lab) was used in order to do a
frequency sweep. The frequency sweep provides the bode plot of the channel as
seen in FIGURE 4. From the plot it can be deemed that the channel work best
between frequencies of 1khz and 50khz. Thus, when choosing the carrier
frequencies for the modulation schemes this will be taken into consideration.

Figure 4: Bode plot of Channel

Noise characteristics

It is required to set the potentiometer so that the noise figure is the required
value of 0.2V RMS.

Transmitter design

With designing the transmitter we will be required to select a suitable modulation

scheme and implement it. Modulation is a process of mixing a signal with a
sinusoid to produce a new signal. (Wikibooks 2014). Modulation is used because
there are data signals that are not always suitable for direct transmission,
whereas a modulated signal may be of greater preference.

In our case, we are required to transmit data over a channel that has a
significant amount of noise, and therefore different types of modulation schemes
were considered. There are three fundamental types of modulation used in
telecommunications. They are as follows:

1. Amplitude modulation
2. Frequency modulation
3. Phase modulation

Amplitude modulation is where the amplitude of the carrier signal is modulated,

or in other words, changed, in proportion to the modulating signal where the
frequency and phase of the carrier signal is kept constant. FIGURE 5 graphically
gives an idea of the mechanics of this type of modulation.
 Figure5: Amplitude modulation

Just like amplitude modulation, frequency modulation is where the frequency of

the carrier signal is modulated, in proportion to the modulating signal where the
amplitude and phase of the carrier signal is kept constant. FIGURE 6 graphically
gives an idea of the mechanics of this type of modulation.

Figure6: Frequency Modulation

Phase modulation is where the phase of the carrier signal is modulated, in

proportion to the modulating signal where the amplitude and frequency of the
carrier signal is kept constant. FIGURE 7 graphically gives an idea of the
mechanics of this type of modulation.
 Figure7: Phase Modulation

From these three types of modulation, frequency modulation was chosen to be

implemented in our transmitter design. The reasons were as follows:

Performs well amongst noise

o Most noise in amplitude based, and this was seen to be the case
when the channel was modelled.
Behaves when subject to signal strength variations
o Frequency modulation is that it does not suffer audio amplitude
variations as the signal level varies

Since the design is to transmit binary data, a branch of frequency modulation,

known as Binary Frequency Shift Keying is implemented. Binary Frequency Shift
Keying uses a pair of discrete frequencies to transmit binary (0s and 1s)
information (Wikipedia 2014). This is shown in FIGURE 8

Figure 8: Binary frequency Shift Keying

To implement this modulation scheme, the sound card of the PC in use is to be

used/controlled with the use of the program, Matlab. The sound card can
essentially provide the user with a signal whose characteristics is programmed
by Matlab. In order to output from the sound card a Matlab function

player=audioplayer(Y,Fs)

which creates an audioplayer object for signal Y, using sample rate Fs.
(MathWorks Australia 2014).

The current design will transmit a sinusoidal wave of frequency,

f 1 =8bit rate ,

when required to send a binary value of 1, and will transmit a sinusoidal wave of

frequency,
f 2=2bit rate , when required to send a binary value of 0. The

selections of differing frequency factors were made so that there would be a

reduced ambiguity between what is represented as a 1 or a 0.

The sampling rate Fs, was made to be

f 1 , as this should be the frequency of

the carrier wave because of its greater value over

f2 .

This output wave is then transmitted through the channel to be processed by the
receiver at the other end.

Receiver design

When designing the receiver, it was taken into account what modulation scheme
was used, i.e. Binary Frequency Shift Keying. Therefore a few methods of
frequency demodulation were considered. They include:

FM demodulation using a frequency discriminator

o Involves differentiating the modulated signal such that the resulting
waveform has the corresponding message in the amplitude of the
signal
FM demodulation by a zero-crossing detector
o Involves measuring the number of zero-crossings in a certain time
interval to determine the bit that was sent
FM demodulation with a bandpass limiter
o Similar to the method using the frequency discriminator, except
that a bandpass limiter is implemented prior to the differentiation.
This bandpass limiter may be used to remove the variation in the
received signals amplitude.
FM demodulation with feedback
o Involves phase lock loop, which detects the carrier wave and then
extracts the embedded message by multiplying the received signal
with that same carrier wave.

FM demodulation by a zero-crossing detector was deemed to be what was

required to demodulate the signal. The advantage of zero crossing detection
(and FM-to-AM conversion) is that no source of the carrier frequency is required
to demodulate the signal. A digital signal can easily be recovered from a FM
signal in this manner.

However, a slight deviation of the existing method was used. Instead of

detecting the amount of zero crossings, the amount of peaks of the message
signal was counted. The reason being is that it would be much easier to
distinguish between what is the message and what is just noise. This is achieved
by implementing amplitude thresholds, as the amplitude carrier wave will
inevitably be greater than the amplitude of the noise.

Therefore, when the measured wave has a frequency of

f1 over a
predetermined bit period, the system will judge the message to be a bit of value
1 since the amount of peaks will be greater than the amount of peaks found in a

wave of frequency
f2 .

Next, in order for the system to process the required data, a method of acquiring
the data must be determined. This is the role that the National Instruments USB-
6009 Multifunction DAQ fills. The DAQ will interface the output of the
communications channel to the computer. This is accomplished using a Matlab
function

daq.createSession(ni)

which creates a session object that you can configure to perform operations
(MathWorks Australia 2014), and Matlab property

s.Rate

which sets the rate of operation in scans per second (MathWorks Australia
2014). This property is set to the maximum value so as to ensure we sample
enough data to effectively emulate the real signal.

Now to record the output of the channel, the analog output of the channel will be
the analog input to the DAQ. Thus the Matlab function to initialise the DAQ to
accept the inputs is

s.addAnalogInputChannel

which adds a channel on the device (MathWorks Australia 2014).

Finally the Matlab operation

s.startForeground

enables the computer to store discrete values of the modulated waveform,

allowing us to begin calculating the values outlined in the Design Requirements.

Implementation and Test Plan

The implementation & testing of this task was categorised into two sections,
these included:

Implementation & testing of the channel

Implementation & testing of the Modulation Scheme

Channel

The channel has two main components as previously explained, it has a

component to generate Gaussian noise and it has component that is the actual
channel. The noise component was built as given to us in the design
specification. The testing involved tuning the potentiometer so that it met the
design requirements of 0.2V rms, this was easily done with the use of an
oscilloscope and measuring the rms output of the noise component.

The implementation of the channel was further subdivided into components so

that testing could be done more easily. The following outlines implementation
and testing methods for the subcomponents:

- Low pass filter:

The cut off frequency for this low pass filter can be found using:

1 1
f c= 15915.5 Hz
2 RC 2 (1000 ) ( 10 109 )

This theoretical value was then tested to see if the circuit performed as
required. The tested cut-off frequency was found to be 14.5kHz. This value is
within reasonable tolerance and therefore the circuit was deemed acceptable.

- Voltage Limiter

The purpose of this circuit was to limit the voltage, after the
low pass filter, to a voltage that is equal to or below the
diode voltage. This was circuit was test by applying a DC
voltage that was above the diode voltage and was checked for
where the output was limited to the theoretical diode voltage of
0.7V. After testing with a 5V DC source the output was limited to 0.763 V.
Again this value is within reasonable tolerance of the theoretical value and
thus this circuit was deemed acceptable.

- Non-Inverting Amplifier

This circuit is simply an amplifier, performing circuit analysis:


+=V
V =V

V
10 k
V
V out =
10 k

V out V =V

V out =2 V

We can see that the function of this op-amp circuit is to simply double the input
voltage. This circuit was tested by applying a 5V DC voltage to the input and the
output was measured to be 10.1V. Again this value is well within reasonable
tolerance, deeming this circuit acceptable.

- Band pass filter

The purpose of the band pass filter is to limit the output of the circuit to a
particular band of frequencies. The testing of the circuit showed
that the circuits pass band was between 200Hz and 8.7kHz. This is
within reasonable tolerance of the theoretically
calculated pass band shown below:

1
f low = 282.19 Hz
2 ( 47 109 ) ( 12 103 )

1
f high= 6.047 kHz
2 ( 4.7 109 ) ( 5.6 103 )

Modulation Scheme

After modelling our channel, previously shown, it was found that the best
operating frequencies was between 1kHz and 50kHz. Testing of the modulation
scheme required a lot of tweaking, as we were required in the design task to
maximise bit rate and at the same time keep the bit error to less than or equal
1%, and also keeping in mind the limitation of the channel. We approached the
testing by gradually increasing the bit rate, initially the bit period was set to 1ms
which correlates to a bit rate of 1000 bits per second. Figure 9 below shows the
waveform of the modulated wave with a bit period of 1ms.

Figure9: Frequency modulated wave

Demodulating this modulated wave gave a result with no errors. So the bit period
was increased until an error was given, the bit period, which gave error, was
60ns, so the bit period was set to 70ns. 70ns correlates to the high carrier
frequency of 115kHz, which is within the limitation of the channel, however there
was a reduction in gain, which was accounted for when setting the threshold
limits.

Conclusion

After careful consideration of numerous factors which have been detailed above
this design task was completed using a FSK modulation scheme, achieving a bit
rate of 1.308Khz and a bit error of zero.

References
Wikibooks 2014, Communication Systems/What is Modulation?, accessed 17 May
2014,
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Communication_Systems/What_is_Modulation%3F>
Wikipedia 2014, Frequency-shift keying, accessed 17 May 2014,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying >

MathWorks Australia 2014, MATLAB audioplayer, accessed 17 May 2014,

<http://www.mathworks.com.au/help/matlab/ref/audioplayer.html >

MathWorks Australia 2014, MATLAB daq.createSession, accessed 17 May 2014,

<http://www.mathworks.com.au/help/daq/ref/daq.createsession.html>

MathWorks Australia 2014, MATLAB Rate, accessed 17 May 2014,

<http://www.mathworks.com.au/help/daq/ref/rate.html>

MathWorks Australia 2014, MATLAB addAnalogInputChannel, accessed 17 May

2014,
<http://www.mathworks.com.au/help/daq/ref/daq.session.addanaloginputchannel
.html>