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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 38, NO. 3, MARCH 1990

A Simple Derivation of the Power Spectrum of Full-Response CPM and

Some of its Properties
EZIO BIGLIEFU AND MONICA VISINTIN

Abstract-Based on a new representation for continuous-phase modulated (CPM) signals 161, it is shown how a closed-form expression for
the power spectral density of full-responseM-ary CPM with modulation
index J/M can be obtained by straightforward computations. This result
is used to provide an explanation of the fact that this power spectral
density depends only on J and not on M .

only for 0 5 t 5 LT,, where L is the pulse length. The value of L

contributes to a taxonomy of CPM signals, namely:
L = 1 : full-response signals;
L > 1 : partial-response signals.
In the following we shall assume L = 1, and we shall normalize the
frequency pulse g ( t ) so as to have
w

g ( 7 ) d 7 = 1/2.

J,

I. INTRODUCTION

KANAYAKE [ 3 ] recently studied CPFSK with modulation inex 1/M, and showed that it can be detected by using conventional PSK techniques, i.e., either a differentially coherent detection
scheme or a coherent-detection differential-decoding scheme. He also
observed, from his numerical results, that the transmitted signal has
approximately the same power spectral density (as a function of the
normalized frequency fT,where T , is the signaling period), regardless of the value of M , provided that M is large enough. More
recently, Rimoldi [7] observed that for any fixed J , M-ary CPFSK
modulation with h = J / M has approximately the same bandwidth,
regardless of the value of M , provided that h 5 1/2.
The purpose of this paper is to show how a simple, straightforward derivation of the power density spectrum of M-ary fullresponse continuous-phase modulation (CPM) with modulation index
h = J / M , J an integer, can be obtained by using the new representation of CPM signals proposed in [ 6 ] . Specialization to CPFSK
yields a simple formula for the spectrum that allows us to understand
why it approximately depends only on J and not on M .

Ed

11. THEPOWER
SPECTRAL
DENSITY

. . . ,a -2,a-l,aoral,

denotes the symbol sequence sent to the CPM modulator. The sym3 , . . . , 2C ( M - 1 ) where M is an even
bols a, take values 2C 1 ,
number. The parameter h is called the modulation index; when this
parameter is a rational number, the number of states in CPM is finite. Thus, we shall assume that h is the ratio of two integer numbers,
and, in particular, that it has the form

h = -J
M

A continuous-phase modulated signal is defined by its complex

envelope

/F

In Rimoldis representation [ 7 ] ,the CPM signal is written in the

form

fh =

-h(M

1)/2T,,

and $ ( t ; U,, U , ) is the physical tilted phase, that, for Meven and
0 5 t < T , , is given by

expjO(t, a )

$(t;

where E, is the symbol energy and T , is the symbol time. The

transmitted information is contained in the phase

U , , U , ) = 2irh0,

where U, = ( a , + M

w(t)

cc
~~

O ( t , a )= 27rh

a,q(t

(4)

where

A . Rimoldis Representation of CPM

s ( t ,a ) =

In ( 2 ) ,

nT,)

+47rhu,q(t)

+~

( t )

1)/2, so that U, E (0, l , . . . , M - l } , and

irh(M - 1 )

t
T,

--

27rh(M - l ) q ( t ) ,

(6)

and the transition between the modulator states are described by the
equation

n=-m

with q ( t ) the phase-shaping pulse given by

(7)

dt)=

g ( 7 ) d7.

(3)

where R M [ X ]denotes the remainder of X after division by M , and

g ( t ) is the frequency pulse with finite duration, i.e., g ( t ) is nonzero

Paper approved by the Editor for Modulation Theory and Nonlinear Channels of the IEEE CommunicationsSociety. Manuscript received June 2, 1988;
revised March 2, 1989.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University
of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1600.
IEEE Log Number 8933670.

is the number of modulator states.

B . The Power Spectrum: General Expression

Consider a digital signal generated by a modulator with memory,
modeled as follows. The source symbols U, form an independent,

0090-6778/90/03OO-0267$01.OO

1990 IEEE

268

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 38, NO. 3, MARCH 1990

identically distributed sequence of random variables taking on values

in the set (0, 1,. . . ,M - 1). The modulator state sequence (a")
forms a fully regular Markov chain with S states, which we denote
0, 1, . . . , S - 1 . Its power density spectrum is given by

C. Computation of the Relevant Quantities

6(f)= 6 ' c ) ( f+)6 ( d ) ( f )

(8)

where $'(f) and S@'df) denote the continuous and the discrete
parts, respectively. We have [2, pp. 34-45]

6'c'(f)

E [cOcf) I p ( f ) ' 2 3

2
(Rtcfdf)Ac f ) c ' ( f ) l (')

and

Consider first the matrices E k . From ( 7 ) we see that

Ek = E t
where E l is the matrix whose effect on a S-vector is to cyclically
shift its components by one step to the left. Thus,

Es =Eo = I
where I denotes the S x S identity matrix, and among the M matrices
Ek there are MIS matrices equal to E l , M/S matrices equal to E * ,
and so on. Thus,

1
-

MS-l
E k

. -S x

=SJ

k =O

Since

-w -

between modulator states. Specifically, Ek is an S x S matrix whose

entry in row i and column j , i, j = 0, . . . , S - 1, is a 1 if the symbol
ufl = k drives the modulator from state a,, = i to state ufltl = j , and
a 0 otherwise. If q k , k = 0, 1 , . . . , M - 1 denote the probabilities
of the source symbols, that is,

p-a,=p=

..w -

P =Pp
subject to the condition
probability matrix

p i = 1. Then the limiting transition

Pm

lim P"
"'03

exists, and has all of its rows equal to the probability vectorp . Define
also the S x S diagonal matrix

Finally, let S k ( f ) denote the S-vector whose ith component is the

Fourier transform of the signal generated by the modulator when it
is in state iand the input symbol is k , say s ( t ; k , i ) , i = 0,. . ,M-1,
k =O,...,S- 1 . Then,

=Pc:(f)

E,,

(notice that

D =diag(popl . . . p ~ - ~ ) .

P(f)

i =O,...,S- 1 , k = O , . . . , M - 1 where

E;

= eJ2r"

= l),

A=@,
and

(11)

(yk(f) =

5 {~~jl2*/hr+4*hkq(r)+w(r)l

We can write

(12)
Sk(f) =a(k(f)[l

M-I

Eh

In conclusion, we get

(13)
P(f) =0
M-1

Here s,'df) and s:(f) are, respectively, the complex conjugate and
the transpose of sk U ) .

"'E;-'].

1.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 38, NO. 3, MARCH 1990

M-I

M-I

C2(f) =
k =O

M-I

k =O

Hence,

M-I

(M-I

. M-I

The two summations in the last equation can be viewed as the approximation of two integrals:

Equation (22) can be given a more compact form by defining the

vector

a ( f ) = [ao(f),aM--l(f)l

1 M - a o ( f T s - kh)2 !z

1
@t4fyl(f)at(f)l
TSM

111. POWER
SPECTRUM
OF CPFSK

Equation (22) can be specialized to the case of CPFSK by letting

q ( t )= t/2T,, and consequently w ( t ) = 0. Thus,

where

Thus,

=U o ( f T s

kh)e-J(frs-kh)

fTs+JI2

A2T:

sin T X
-)2dx

(24)

fTs--5/2

fTs+J/2

M-1

k =O

sin AX
AT,dx.
TX

fTs-JI2

(25)

(23) Here, the approximation

where a( f ) is the complex conjugate of the transpose of a ( f ) . It

can be observed that all (23) requires is the computation of the
Fourier transforms ( 16).
Similar expressions for the power spectrum of CPM signals were
previously derived, by other means, in ( [ l ] , [4],[5]).

(Yk(f)

and

and the matrix H ( f ) whose entry i, j is 6i, e - J 2 * f T s ~ ~ 2 /i,M ,

j = 0 , . . . ,M - 1 , and 6 denotes the Kronecker symbol. We get

6(f) =

k =O

h(M-l)=J-

M - 1

XJ

has been made.

It can be seen that the values of these two integrals depend on J but
not on M. Thus, if M is large enough to make the approximations
(24) and (25) accurate, the power spectrum itself will not depend on

M.
REFERENCES
[l] R. R. Anderson and J. Salz, Spectra of digital FM, Bell Syst. Tech.
J . , vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 1165-1189, July-Aug. 1965.
[2] S. Benedetto, E. Biglieri, and V. Castellani, Digital Transmission
Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987.
[3] N. Ekanayake, Mary continuous phase frequency shigt keying with
modulation index l/M, ZEE Proc., vol. 131, Part F, no. 2, pp.
173-178, Apr. 1984.
[4] T. Maseng, The power spectrum of digital FM as produced by digital
circuits, Signal Processing, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 253-261, Dec. 1985.
[5] J. G. Proakis, Digital Communications. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1983, pp. 130-135.
[6] B. E. Rimoldi, A decomposition approach to CPM, ZEEE Trans.
Inform. Theory, vol. 34, pp. 260-270, Mar. 1988.
[7] B. E. Rimoldi, Continuous-phase modulation and coding for bandwidth and energy efficiency, Dr. Sc. dissertation, Swiss Fed. Inst. of
Technol., Zurich, 1988.