EE445S Real-Time Digital Signal Processing Lab

Spring 2014

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

(QAM) Transmitter
Prof. Brian L. Evans
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
Lecture 15

Introduction
Digital Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)
Modulates digital information onto amplitude of pulse
May be later upconverted (e.g. to radio frequency)

Digital Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)

Two-dimensional extension of digital PAM
Baseband signal requires sinusoidal amplitude modulation
May be later upconverted (e.g. to radio frequency)

Digital QAM modulates digital information onto

pulses that are modulated onto
Amplitudes of a sine and a cosine, or equivalently
Amplitude and phase of single sinusoid
15 - 2

Review

Amplitude Modulation by Cosine

Y1

y1(t) = x1(t) cos(c t)

1
1
X 1 c X 1 c
2
2

Assume x1(t) is an ideal lowpass signal with bandwidth 1

Assume 1 << c
Y1() is real-valued if X1() is real-valued
X1()
Y1()
X1c
1

X1c

Baseband signal

-c -

-c +

c -

Upconverted signal

c +

Demodulation: modulation then lowpass filtering

15 - 3

Review

Amplitude Modulation by Sine

j
j
Y2 X 2 c X 2 c
2
2

y2(t) = x2(t) sin(c t)

Assume x2(t) is an ideal lowpass signal with bandwidth 2

Assume 2 << c
Y2() is imaginary-valued if X2() is real-valued
X2() 1
Y2() -j X2c
j X2c
j

Baseband signal

c
-c

c +

- c +
-j

Upconverted signal

Demodulation: modulation then lowpass filtering

15 - 4

Baseband Digital QAM Transmitter

Continuous-time filtering and upconversion
Impulse
modulator

i[n]
Index
Bits
1

Serial/
parallel
converter

Pulse shapers
(FIR filters)

Map to 2-D
constellation

q[n]

gT(t)

Impulse
modulator

Local
Oscillator

s(t)

Delay

+
90o

gT(t)

d
-d

d
-d

4-level QAM
Constellation

Delay matches delay through 90o phase shifter

Delay required but often omitted in diagrams
15 - 5

Phase Shift by 90 Degrees

90o phase shift performed by Hilbert transformer
cosine => sine
sine => cosine

1
1
cos(2 f 0 t ) ( f f 0 ) ( f f 0 )
2
2
j
j
sin( 2 f 0 t ) ( f f 0 ) ( f f 0 )
2
2

Frequency response H ( f ) j sgn( f )

Magnitude Response
| H( f )|

Phase Response
H ( f )
90o

f
All-pass except at origin

-90o
15 - 6

Hilbert Transformer
Continuous-time ideal
Hilbert transformer

Discrete-time ideal
Hilbert transformer
H ( ) j sgn( )

H ( f ) j sgn( f )
1/( t) if t 0

h(t) =

h[n] =
0

if t = 0

h(t)

2 sin 2 (n / 2)

if n0

if n=0

h[n]
t

n
Even-indexed
samples are
15 - 7 zero

Discrete-Time Hilbert Transformer

Approximate by odd-length linear phase FIR filter
Truncate response to 2 L + 1 samples: L samples left of
origin, L samples right of origin, and origin
Shift truncated impulse response by L samples to right to
make it causal
L is odd because every other sample of impulse response is 0

Linear phase FIR filter of length N has same phase

response as an ideal delay of length (N-1)/2
(N-1)/2 is an integer when N is odd (here N = 2 L + 1)

Matched delay block on slide 15-5 would be an

ideal delay of L samples

15 - 8

Baseband Digital QAM Transmitter

i[n]

Impulse
modulator

Index
Bits
1

Serial/
parallel
converter

100% discrete time

i[n]

Index
Bits
1

Serial/
parallel
converter

L samples/symbol
(upsampling factor)

Pulse shapers
(FIR filters)

Map to 2-D
constellation

q[n]

Impulse
modulator

Local
Oscillator

s(t)

Delay

+
90o

gT(t)

gT[m]
Pulse shapers
(FIR filters)

Map to 2-D
constellation

q[n]

gT(t)

gT[m]

cos(0 m)
sin(0 m)

s[m]

s(t)
D/A

15 - 9

Performance Analysis of PAM

If we sample matched filter output at correct time
instances, nTsym, without any ISI, received signal
x(nTsym ) s (nTsym ) v(nTsym )

v(nT) ~ N(0; 2/Tsym)

where transmitted signal is

s (nTsym ) an (2i 1)d for i = -M/2+1, , M/2
v(t) output of matched filter Gr() for input of
channel additive white Gaussian noise N(0; 2)
Gr() passes frequencies from -sym/2 to sym/2 ,
where sym = 2 fsym = 2 / Tsym

3d
d

d
3 d

4-level PAM
Matched filter has impulse response gr(t) Constellation
15 - 10

Performance Analysis of PAM

d

PI (e) P( v(nTsym ) d ) 2 Q
Tsym

Decision error
for inner points
Decision error
for outer points

PO (e) P(v(nTsym ) d ) Q
Tsym

PO (e) P(v(nTsym ) d ) P (v(nTsym ) d ) Q

Tsym

Symbol error probability

M 2
1
1
2( M 1) d

P (e )
PI (e)
PO (e)
PO (e)
Q
Tsym
M
M
M
M

8-level PAM
Constellation

O-

-7d

-5d

-3d

-d

3d

5d

O+
7d
15 - 11

Performance Analysis of QAM

If we sample matched filter outputs at correct time
instances, nTsym, without any ISI, received signal
Q

x(nTsym ) s (nTsym ) v(nTsym )

Transmitted signal
s (nTsym ) an j bn (2i 1)d j (2k 1)d

where i,k { -1, 0, 1, 2 } for 16-QAM

d
-d

d
-d

Noise

4-level QAM
(nTsym ) analysis,
vI (nTsymassume
) j vnoise
Constellation
Q ( nT
sym ) independent
For errorvprobability
terms
and
each term is Gaussian random variable ~ N(0; 2/Tsym)

In reality, noise terms have common source of additive noise in

channel
15 - 12

Performance Analysis of 16-QAM

Q

Type 1 correct detection

P1 (c) P( vI (nTsym ) d & vQ (nTsym ) d )

P vI (nTsym ) d P vQ (nTsym ) d

1 P vI (nTsym ) d 1 P vQ (nTsym ) d
2Q (

d
T)

1 2Q
Tsym

2Q(

d
T)

16-QAM

1 - interior decision region

2 - edge region but not corner
3 - corner
15 -region
13

Performance Analysis of 16-QAM

Q

Type 2 correct detection

P2 (c) P(vI (nTsym ) d & vQ (nTsym ) d )

P (vI (nTsym ) d ) P ( vQ (nTsym ) d )

1 Q
Tsym

1 2Q
Tsym

Type 3 correct detection

16-QAM

P3 (c) P (vI (nTsym ) d & vQ (nTsym ) d )

P(vI (nTsym ) d ) P (vQ (nTsym ) d )

1 Q
Tsym

1 - interior decision region

2 - edge region but not corner
3 - corner
15 -region
14

Performance Analysis of 16-QAM

Probability of correct detection
4
d

P(c) 1 2Q
Tsym
16

4
d

1 Q
Tsym
16

8
d

1 Q
Tsym
16

1 2Q
Tsym

d
9 d

Tsym Q 2
Tsym

4

1 3Q

Symbol error probability (lower bound)

d
9 2 d

P (e) 1 P (c) 3Q
Tsym Q
Tsym

4

What about other QAM constellations?

15 - 15

Average Power Analysis

3d

Assume each symbol is equally likely

Assume energy in pulse shape is 1
4-PAM constellation
Amplitudes are in set { -3d, -d, d, 3d }
Total power 9 d2 + d2 + d2 + 9 d2 = 20 d2
Average power per symbol 5 d2

d
-d
-3 d

4-level PAM
Constellation

4-QAM constellation points

Points are in set { -d jd, -d + jd, d + jd, d jd }
Total power 2d2 + 2d2 + 2d2 + 2d2 = 8d2
Average power per symbol 2d2

Q
d
-d

d
-d

4-level QAM
15 - 16
Constellation