2.

Frequency Modulation
Frequency modulation, FM is widely used for a variety of radio communications applications.
FM broadcasts on the VHF bands still provide exceptionally high quality audio, and FM is also
used for a variety of forms of two way radio communications, and it is especially useful for
mobile radio communications, being used in taxis, and many other forms of vehicle.
In view of its widespread use, frequency modulation, FM, is an important form of modulation,
despite many forms of digital transmission being used these days.
FM, frequency modulation has been in use for many years. However its advantages were not
immediately apparent. In the early days of wireless, it was thought that a narrower bandwidth
was required to reduce noise and interference. As FM did not perform well under these
conditions, AM predominated and FM was not used. However, Edwin Armstrong, an American
engineer looked at the use of wideband FM for broadcasting and introduced the idea against the
trend of the thinking of the time.
Since its first introduction the use of frequency modulation, FM has grown enormously. Now
wideband FM is still regarded as a very high quality transmission medium for high quality
broadcasting. FM, frequency modulation is also widely used for communications where it is
resilient to variations in signal strength.
Concept of frequency modulation:

The most obvious method of applying modulation to a signal is to superimpose the audio signal
onto the amplitude of the carrier. However this is by no means the only method which can be
employed. It is also possible to vary the frequency of the signal to give frequency modulation or
FM. It can be seen below that the frequency of the signal varies as the voltage of the modulating
signal changes.
The amount by which the signal frequency varies is very important. This is known as the
deviation and is normally quoted as the number of kiloHertz deviation. As an example the signal
may have a deviation of 3 kHz. In this case the carrier is made to move up and down by 3 kHz.
In order to be able to extract any information being carried by an FM signal, it is necessary to
pass it through a demodulator. The output from this stage provides the information that was
carried by the FM signal. There are many methods of achieving this, using circuits that employ a
variety of different techniques.

FM modulation index:
In terms of a definition: the FM modulation index is equal to the ratio of the frequency deviation
to the modulating frequency.
Thus the formula for the modulation index for FM is simple given by that shown below:
FM deviation ratio
The modulation index will vary according to the frequency that is modulating the transmitted
carrier and the amount of deviation. However when designing a system it is important to know
the maximum permissible values. This is given by the deviation ratio and is obtained by inserting
the maximum values into the formula for the modulation index.
Thus the FM deviation ratio can be defined as: the ratio of the maximum carrier frequency
deviation to the highest audio modulating frequency.

Where
D = Deviation ratio.
To give an example of how the deviation ratio may be calculated and used, take the example of
an FM broadcast transmitter. For these the maximum deviation is 75 kHz and the maximum
modulation frequency is 15 kHz. This means that the deviation ratio is 75 / 15 = 5.

Modulation index & FM bandwidth

It will often be seen that the terms narrowband or wideband FM are used when describing the
form of FM being used.

Narrowband FM: Narrow band FM is defined as an FM transmission where the value

of is small enough that the terms in the Bessel expansion, i.e. sidebands are negligible.
For this to be the case the modulation index must be less than 0.5, although a figure of
0.2 is often used. Narrowband FM is often used for short distance communications using
vehicle mount radios or hand carried equipment. Here the narrow band means that the
audio or data bandwidth is small, but this is acceptable for this type of communication.
Wideband FM: Wideband FM is defined as the situation where the modulation index is
above 0.5. Under these circumstances the sidebands beyond the first two terms are not
insignificant. Broadcast FM stations use wideband FM, and using this mode they are able
to take advantage of the wide bandwidth available to transmit high quality audio as well
as other services like a stereo channel, and possibly other services as well on a single
carrier.

The bandwidth of the FM transmission is a means of categorising the basic attributes for the
signal, and as a result these terms are often seen in the technical literature associated with
frequency modulation, and products using FM. This is one area where the figure for modulation
index is used
Frequency modulation Bessel functions & sidebands:
Any signal that is modulated produces sidebands. In the case of an amplitude modulated signal
they are easy to determine, but for frequency modulation the situation is not quite as
straightforward. . They are dependent upon the not only the deviation, but also the level of
deviation, i.e. the modulation index M. The total spectrum is an infinite series of discrete spectral
components expressed by a complex formula using Bessel functions of the first kind.

The total spectrum can be seen to consist of the carrier plus an infinite number of sidebands
spreading out on either side of the carrier at integral multiples of the modulating frequency. The
relative levels of the sidebands can be obtained by referring to a table of Bessel functions. It can
be seen from the image below that the relative levels rise and fall according to the different
values of modulation index.

Relative levels of carrier and sidebands for a frequency modulated signal

For small values of modulation index, when using narrow-band FM, and FM signal consists of
the carrier and the two sidebands spaced at the modulation frequency either side of the carrier.
This looks to be the same as an AM signal, but the difference is that the lower sideband is out of
phase by 180 degrees.
As the modulation index increases it is found that other sidebands at twice the modulation
frequency start to appear. As the index is increased further other sidebands can also be seen.
 Spectra of an FM signal with differing levels of modulation index

At certain levels of modulation, where the modulation index equals figures of 2.41, 5.53, 8.65
and other higher specific levels, the carrier actual falls to a figure of zero, the signal being
comprised simply of the sidebands.

Frequency modulation bandwidth:

In the case of amplitude modulated signal the bandwidth required is twice the maximum
frequency of the modulation. Whilst the same is true for a narrowband FM signal, the situation is
not true for a wideband FM signal. Here the required bandwidth can be very much larger, with
detectable sidebands spreading out over large amounts of the frequency spectrum. Usually it is
necessary to limit the bandwidth of a signal so that it does not unduly interfere with stations
either side.
As a frequency modulated signal has sidebands that extend out to infinity, it is normal accepted
practice to determine the bandwidth as that which contains approximately 98% of the signal
power.
A rule of thumb, often termed Carson's Rule states that 98% of the signal power is contained
within a bandwidth equal to the deviation frequency, plus the modulation frequency doubled, i.e.:
Normally the bandwidth of a wideband FM signal is limited to the Carson's Rule limit - this
reduces interference and does not introduce any undue distortion of the signal. In other words for
a VHF FM broadcast station this must be (2 x 75) + 15 kHz, i.e. 175 kHz. In view of this a total
of 200 kHz is usually allowed, enabling stations to have a small guard band and their centre
frequencies on integral numbers of 100 kHz.

Types of FM:
The level of deviation is important in many aspects. It obviously is important in determining the
bandwidth of the overall signal. As a result the deviation used for FM is different between
different applications. Broadcast stations in the VHF portion of the frequency spectrum between
88.5 and 108 MHz use large values of deviation, typically 75 kHz. This is known as wideband
FM (WBFM). These signals are capable of supporting high quality transmissions, but occupy a
large amount of bandwidth. Usually 200 kHz is allowed for each wideband FM transmission. For
radio communications purposes less bandwidth is used. Narrowband FM, NBFM often uses
deviation figures of around 3 kHz or possibly slightly more. As quality is not as important for
radio communications applications, the much narrower bandwidth has advantages in terms of
radio spectrum efficiency. It has already been mentioned that FM can give a better signal to noise
ratio than AM when wide bandwidths are used. The amplitude noise can be removed by limiting
the signal to remove it. In fact the greater the deviation the better the noise performance. When
comparing an AM signal to an FM one an improvement equal to 3 D2 is obtained where D is the
deviation ratio.
Generation of Wideband FM Signals

Consider the following block diagram

A narrowband FM signal can be generated easily using the block diagram of the narrowband FM
modulator that was described in a previous lecture. The narrowband FM modulator generates a
narrowband FM signal using simple components such as an integrator (an OpAmp), oscillators,
multipliers, and adders. The generated narrowband FM signal can be converted to a wideband
FM signal by simply passing it through a nonlinear device with power P. Both the carrier
frequency and the frequency deviation f of the narrowband signal are increased by a factor P.
Sometimes, the desired increase in the carrier frequency and the desired increase in f are
different. In this case, we increase f to the desired value and use a frequency shifter
(multiplication by a sinusoid followed by a BPF) to change the carrier frequency to the desired
value.
Example 1: A narrowband FM modulator is modulating a message signal m(t) with bandwidth 5
kHz and is producing an FM signal with the following specifications

fc1 = 300 kHz,

f1 = 35 Hz.

We would like to use this signal to generate a wideband FM signal with the following
specifications

fc2 = 135 MHz,

f2 = 77 kHz.

Show the block diagram of several systems that will perform this function and specify the
characteristics of each system

f c 2 135*106
Solution: We see that the ratio of the carrier frequencies is = = 450 ,
f c 1 300*103

f 2 77 *103
and the ratio of the frequency variations is = = 2200 .
f 1 35

Therefore, we should feed the narrowband FM signal into a single (or multiple) nonlinear
device with a nonlinearity order of f2/f1 = 2200. If we do this, the carrier frequency of
narrowband FM signal will also increase by a factor of 2200, which is higher than what is
required. This can easily be corrected by frequency shifting. If we feed the narrowband FM
signal into a nonlinear device of order fc2/fc1, we will get the correct carrier frequency but the
wrong value for f. There is not a way of correcting the value of f for this signal without
affecting the carrier frequency.

System 1:

In this system, we are using a single nonlinear device with an order of 2200 or multiple devices
with a combined order of 2200. It is clear that the output of the nonlinear device has the correct
f but an incorrect carrier frequency which is corrected using a the frequency shifter with an
oscillator that has a frequency equal to the difference between the frequency of its input signal
and the desired carrier frequency. We could also have used an oscillator with a frequency that is
the sum of the frequencies of the input signal and the desired carrier frequency. This system is
characterized by having a frequency shifter with an oscillator frequency that is relatively large.

System 2:

In this system, we are using two nonlinear devices (or two sets of nonlinear devices) with
orders 44 and 50 (44*50 = 2200). There are other possibilities for the factorizing 2200 such as
2*1100, 4*550, 8*275, 10*220, ..Depending on the available components, one of these
factorizations may be better than the others. In fact, in this case, we could have used the same
factorization but put 50 first followed by 44. We want the output signal of the overall system to
be as shown in the block diagram above, so we have to insure that the input to the nonlinear
device with order 50 has the correct carrier frequency such that its output has a carrier frequency
of 135 MHz. This is done by dividing the desired output carrier frequency by the nonlinearity
order of 50, which gives 2.7 MHz. This allows us to figure out the frequency of the required
oscillator which will be in this case 13.22.7 = 10.5 MHz or 13.2+2.7 = 15.9 MHz. We are
generally free to choose which ever we like unless the available components dictate the use of
one of them and not the other. Comparing this system with System 1 shows that the frequency of
the oscillator that is required here is significantly lower (10.5 MHz compared to 525 MHz),
which is generally an advantage.

FM pre-emphasis & de-emphasis:

When using frequency modulation, an additional improvement in signal to noise ratio can be
achieved if the audio signal is pre-emphasized. To achieve this lower level high frequency
sounds are amplified to a greater degree than the lower frequency sounds before they are
transmitted. Once at the receiver the signals are passed through a network with the opposite
effect to restore a flat frequency response.
To achieve the pre-emphasis the signal is passed through a capacitor-resistor (CR) network. At
frequencies above the cut-off frequency the signal increases in level by 6 dB per octave.
Similarly at the receiver the response falls by the same amount.
Both the receiver and transmitter networks must match one another. In the UK the CR time
constant is chosen to be 50sS. For this the break frequency f1 is 3183 Hz. For broadcasting in
North America values of 75s with a break frequency of 2.1 kHz is used.
Pre-emphasizing the audio for an FM signal is effective because the noise output from an FM
system is proportional to the audio frequency. In order to reduce the level of this effect, the audio
amplifier in the receiver must have a response that falls with frequency. In order to prevent the
audio signal from losing the higher frequencies, the transmitter must increase the level of the
higher frequencies to compensate. This can be achieved because the level of the high frequency
sounds is usually less than those lower in frequency.

Frequency Modulation Advantages & Disadvantages:

FM is widely used because of the many advantages of frequency modulation. Although, in the
early days of radio communications, these were not exploited because of a lack of understand of
how to benefit from FM, once these were understood, its use grew. There are many advantages of
FM, but also some disadvantages, and as a result it is suitable for many applications, but other
modes may be more suited to other applications. An understanding of the disadvantages and
advantages of FM will enable the choice of the best modulation format to be made.

Advantages of FM:
There are many advantages to the use of frequency modulation. The FM systems have some definite
advantages.

i) Firstly, the excessive power dissipation due to extreme peaks in the waveform need
not be bothered.
ii) Secondly, the non liner amplitude distortion has no effect on message transmission,
since the information resides in zero crossing of the wave and not in the amplitude
However phase shift or delay distortion is intolerable.
iii) To avoid this problem a limiter circuit is used to clip the spurious amplitude variation
without disturbing the messages.
These have meant that it has been widely used for many years, and will remain in use for many
years.

noise: One of the main advantages of frequency modulation that has been utilized by the
broadcasting industry is the reduction in noise. As most noise is amplitude based, this can
be removed by running the signal through a limiter so that only frequency variations
appear. This is provided that the signal level is sufficiently high to allow the signal to be
limited.
signal strength variations: In the same way that amplitude noise can be removed, so too
can any signal variations. This means that one of the advantages of frequency modulation
is that it does not suffer audio amplitude variations as the signal level varies, and it makes
FM ideal for use in mobile applications where signal levels constantly vary. This is
provided that the signal level is sufficiently high to allow the signal to be limited.
 Does not require linear amplifiers in the transmitter: As only frequency changes are
required to be carried, any amplifiers in the transmitter do not need to be linear.
Enables greater efficiency than many other modes: The use of non-linear amplifiers,
e.g. class C, etc means that transmitter efficiency levels will be higher - linear amplifiers
are inherently inefficient.

Disadvantages of FM:
There are a number of dis-advantages to the use of frequency modulation. Some are can be
overcome quite easily, but others may mean that another modulation format is more suitable.

Requires more complicated demodulator: One of the minor dis-advantages of

frequency modulation is that the demodulator is a little more complicated, and hence
slightly more expensive than the very simple diode detectors used for AM. Also requiring
a tuned circuit adds cost. However this is only an issue for the very low cost broadcast
receiver market.
Some other modes have higher data spectral efficiency: Some phase modulation and
quadrature amplitude modulation formats have a higher spectral efficiency for data
transmission that frequency shift keying, a form of frequency modulation. As a result,
most data transmission system use PSK and QAM.
Sidebands extend to infinity either side: The sidebands for an FM transmission
theoretically extend out to infinity. To limit the bandwidth of the transmission, filters are
used, and these introduce some distortion of the signal.

Phase Modulation:
PM changes the phase angle of the complex envelope in direct proportion to the message signal.
Suppose that the signal to be sent (called the modulating or message signal) is and the
carrier onto which the signal is to be modulated is

carrier(time) = (carrier amplitude)*sin(carrier frequency*time + phase shift)

This makes the modulated signal

This shows how modulates the phase - the greater m(t) is at a point in time, the greater the
phase shift of the modulated signal at that point. It can also be viewed as a change of the
frequency of the carrier signal, and phase modulation can thus be considered a special case of
FM in which the carrier frequency modulation is given by the time derivative of the phase
modulation.
The modulation signal could here be
The mathematics of the spectral behavior reveals that there are two regions of particular interest:
For small amplitude signals, PM is similar to amplitude modulation (AM) and exhibits its
unfortunate doubling of baseband bandwidth and poor efficiency.
For a single large sinusoidal signal, PM is similar to FM, and its bandwidth is
approximately

Generation of FM:

The frequency modulated signals can be generated in 2 ways:

i) Direct method of FM
ii) Indirect method of FM.
The prime requirement of FM generation sis a viable output frequency. The frequency is
directly propositional to the instantaneous amplitude of the modulating voltage. The
subsidiary requirement of FM generation is that the frequency deviation is independent of
modulating frequency. However if the system does not properly produce these
characteristics, corrections can be introduced during the modulation process.

Varactor Diode Modulator:

This is one method of FM generation. Figure how the characteristics curve of a typical
variable capacitance diode (varactor diode) displaying the capacitance as function of reverse
bias.

Transfer characteristics of Varactor Diode

Increasing the bias increase the width of PN junction and reduces the capacitance .It can be
mathematically written as

1
C whereV = reverse
V
Figure shows the basic circuit for FM generation .Here the varactor diode is connected across the
resonant circuit of an oscillator through a coupling capacitor of relatively large value .This
coupling capacitor isolated the varactor diode from eh oscillator as far as DC is connected and
provide an effective short circuit at the operation frequencies.

Fig: Varactor Diode Modulator

The D.C bias to the varactor diode is regulated in such a ways that the oscillator
frequency is not affected by varactor supply fluctuations. The modulating signal is fed in
series with this regulated supply and at any instant the effective bias to the varactor diode
equals the algebraic sum of the d.c bias volt V and the instantaneous values of the
modulating signal.
As a result, the capacitance changes with amplitude of the modulating signal resulting in
frequency modulating of the oscillator output.
The rate of change of carrier frequency depends on the information signal. Since the
information signal directly controls the frequency of the oscillator the output is frequency
modulated .The chief advanced for this circuit is the use of two terminal devices but
makes its applications limited.

Applications:
i) Automatic frequency control
ii) Remote tuning.
Disadvantage of Direct Method:

The direct modulators cant employ crystal oscillators to obtain high frequency stability.
This problem becomes more accurate when the narrow band FM is multiplied by
appropriate frequency multiplying networks in order to achieve the desired wide band
FM
This is because crystal frequency cant be varied as required in FM therefore non crystal
oscillators are used which dont have sufficient stability for use in commercial system.
More over the reactance modulator has to be stabilized which makes already complex
circuitry even more complex.

Indirect Method:
 In this method, first the modulating signal is integrated and then phase modulated with
ethers carrier signal, as a result of which some form for FM signal is obtained .Later
frequency multipliers are used to get the desired wideband FM.
To overcome the disadvantage of direct method of FM wave generations, in the indirect
method a stable crystal oscillator is used to generate PM from which narrow band FM is
obtained.
Then suitable frequency multiplying circuits are used to obtain the desired wide and FM.
This method is called the Armstrong method of FM wave generation.

Fig: Reactance Modulator

Comparison of AM and FM:

i) In AM system there are three frequency components,(the carrier ,LSB and USB
terms) and hence the bandwidth is finite. but FM system has infinite number of
sidebands in addition to a signal carrier. Each sideband is speared by a frequency, f m
hence its B.W is infinite.
ii) In FM, the sidebands at equal distance from f c has equal amplitude s ,ie sideband
distribution is symmetrical about the carrier frequency .The J coefficient(Bessel
Coefficients) occasionally have negative values signifying a 180 0 phase change for
the particular pair of side band.
iii) The amplitude of frequency modulated wave in FM is independent of modulation
index, whereas the amplitude of modulated wave in AM is dependent of modulation
index.
iv) In AM, increased modulation index increases the sideband power and there fore
increased the total transmitted power .In FM the total transmitted power always
remains constant but an increase in the modulation index increases the bandwidth of
system.
v) In FM system all transmitted power is useful whereas in AM most of the transmitted
power is used by the carrier .But the carrier does not contains any useful
information .Hence the power is wasted.
vi) Noise is very less in FM, hence there is an increase in the signal to noise ratio. There
are 2 reasons for this
1) There is less noise at frequencies where FM is used.
2) FM receivers use amplitude limiters to remove the amplitude variation caused by
noise, this feature does not exit in AM.
vii) Due to frequency allocations by CCIR (International Radio Consultative Committee)
there are guard bands between FM stations so that the there is less adjacent channel
interface than in AM.
viii) FM system operated in UHF and VHF range of frequencies s and at these frequencies
the space wave is used for propagations, so that the radius of reception is limited
slightly more than line of sight .It is thus possible to operate several independent
transmitters on the same frequency with considerably less interference than would be
possible with AM.
Comparison of FM and PM:

Phase modulation is equivalent to frequency modulation with a modulation index m p=

m Thus holds only when its modulation is sinusoidal.

The spectrum of PM wave is similar to that of an FM wave.

Foster Seelay Discriminator:

The circuit diagram of Foster Seelay Discriminator is when in figure It was

invented by Foster Seelay hence its name. Because of its circuit conflagration and
option it is also called as center tuned discriminator.
 Fig: Foster Seelay Discriminator

It is possible to obtain the same S shaped response curve from a circuit in which
the primary and secondary winding are both tuned to the center frequency of the
incoming signals .This is derisible because it greatly simplifies alignment and also
the process yields better linearity than slope detection.

In this discriminator the same diode and load arrangement is used as I the
balanced slope detection. But the method of ensuring that voltage fed to the
diodes varies linearly with deviation of the input signal.