Single-sideband modulation

Single-sideband modulation (SSB) is a refinement of amplitude modulation that more efficiently uses electrical power and bandwidth. It is closely related to vestigial sideband modulation (VSB) (see below). Amplitude modulation produces a modulated output signal that has twice the bandwidth of the original baseband signal. Single-sideband modulation avoids this bandwidth doubling, and the power wasted on a carrier, at the cost of somewhat increased device complexity. The first U.S. patent for SSB modulation was applied for on December 1, 1915 by John Renshaw Carson. The U.S. Navy experimented with SSB over its radio circuits before World War I. SSB first entered commercial service on January 7, 1927 on the longwave transatlantic public radiotelephone circuit between New York and London. The high power SSB transmitters were located at Rocky Point, New York and Rugby, England. The receivers were in very quiet locations in Houlton, Maine and Cupar Scotland. SSB was also used over long distance telephone lines, as part of a technique known as frequency-division multiplexing (FDM). FDM was pioneered by telephone companies in the 1930s. This enabled many voice channels to be sent down a single physical circuit, for example in L-carrier. SSB allowed channels to be spaced (usually) just 4,000 Hz apart, while offering a speech bandwidth of nominally 3003,400 Hz. Amateur radio operators began serious experimentation with SSB after World War II. The Strategic Air Command established SSB as the radio standard for its aircraft in 1957. It has become a de facto standard for long-distance voice radio transmissions since then. SSB and VSB can also be regarded mathematically as special cases of analog quadrature amplitude modulation.

Practical implementations Bandpass filtering

be known as a sideband.

. Each cosine term in the equation is

One method of producing an SSB signal is to remove one of the sidebands via filtering, leaving only either the upper sideband (USB), the sideband with the higher frequency, or less commonly the lower sideband (LSB), the sideband with the lower frequency. Most often, the carrier is reduced or removed entirely (suppressed), being referred to in full as single sideband suppressed carrier (SSBSC). Assuming both sidebands are

symmetric, which is the case for a normal AM signal, no information is lost in the process. Since the final RF amplification is now concentrated in a single sideband, the effective power output is greater than in normal AM (the carrier and redundant sideband account for well over half of the power output of an AM transmitter). Though SSB uses substantially less bandwidth and power, it cannot be demodulated by a simpleenvelope detector like standard AM.

Hartley modulator
An alternate method of generation known as a Hartley modulator, named after R. V. L. Hartley, uses phasing to suppress the unwanted sideband. To generate an SSB signal with this method, two versions of the original signal are generated, mutually 90 out of phase for any single frequency within the operating bandwidth. Each one of these signals then modulates carrier waves (of one frequency) that are also 90 out of phase with each other. By either adding or subtracting the resulting signals, a lower or upper sideband signal results. A benefit of this approach is to allow an analytical expression for SSB signals, which can be used to understand effects such as synchronous detection of SSB. Shifting the baseband signal 90 out of phase cannot be done simply by delaying it, as it contains a large range of frequencies. In analog circuits, a wideband 90-degree phasedifference network is used. The method was popular in the days of vacuum-tube radios, but later gained a bad reputation due to poorly adjusted commercial implementations. Modulation using this method is again gaining popularity in the homebrew andDSP fields. This method, utilizing the Hilbert transform to phase shift the baseband audio, can be done at low cost with digital circuitry.

Weaver modulator
Another variation, the Weaver modulator, uses only lowpass filters and quadrature mixers, and is a favored method in digital implementations. In Weaver's method, the band of interest is first translated to be centered at zero, conceptually by modulating a complex exponentialexp(jt) with frequency in the middle of the voiceband, but implemented by a quadrature pair of sine and cosine modulators at that frequency (e.g. 2 kHz). This complex signal or pair of real signals is then lowpass filtered to remove the undesired sideband that is not centered at zero. Then, the single-sideband complex signal centered at zero is upconverted to a real signal, by another pair of quadrature mixers, to the desired center frequency.

Different Forms of modulation:

1. Amplitude modulation (AM) is a technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. AM works by varying the strength of the transmitted signal in relation to the information being sent. For example, changes in the signal strength can be used to specify the sounds to be reproduced by a loudspeaker, or the light intensity of television pixels. (Contrast this with frequency modulation, also commonly used for sound transmissions, in which the frequency is varied; and phase modulation, often used in remote controls, in which the phase is varied) In the mid-1870s, a form of amplitude modulationinitially called "undulatory currents" was the first method to successfully produce quality audio over telephone lines. Beginning with Reginald Fessenden's audio demonstrations in 1906, it was also the original method used for audio radio transmissions, and remains in use today by many forms of communication"AM" is often used to refer to the mediumwave broadcast band. 2. Phase modulation (PM) is a form of modulation that represents information as variations in the instantaneous phase of a carrier wave. Unlike its more popular counterpart, frequency modulation (FM), PM is not very widely used for radio transmissions. This is because it tends to require more complex receiving hardware and there can be ambiguity problems in determining whether, for example, the signal has changed phase by +180 or -180. PM is used, however, in digital music synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7, even though these instruments are usually referred to as "FM" synthesizers (both modulation types sound very similar, but PM is usually easier to implement in this area). 3. In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation (FM) conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This is in contrast with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant. In analog applications, the difference between the instantaneous and the base frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal amplitude. Digital data can be sent by shifting the carrier's frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequency-shift keying. Frequency modulation can be regarded as phase modulation where the carrier phase modulation is the time integral of the FM modulating signal. FM is widely used for broadcasting of music and speech, and in two-way radio systems, in magnetic tape recording systems, and certain video transmission systems. In radio systems, frequency modulation with sufficient bandwidth provides an advantage in cancelling naturally-occurring noise. Frequency-shift keying (digital FM) is widely used in data and fax modems.

Other ways of generating AM:

transmission is a special case in which the carrier level is reduced below that required for demodulation by a normal receiver. Reduction of the carrier level permits higher power levels in the sidebands than would be possible with conventional AM transmission. Carrier power must be restored by the receiving station to permit demodulation, usually by means of a beat frequency oscillator (BFO). Failure of the BFO to match the original carrier frequency when receiving such a signal will cause a heterodyne. Suppressed carriers are often used for single sideband (SSB) transmissions, such as for amateur radio on shortwave. That system is referred to in full as SSB suppressed carrier (SSBSC) or (SSB-SC). International broadcasters agreed in 1985 to also use SSBSC entirely by 2015, though IBOC and IBAC digital radio (namely Digital Radio Mondiale) seems likely to make this irrelevant. FM stereo transmissions use a double-sideband suppressed carrier (DSBSC) signal from a stereo generator, together with a pilot tone of exactly half the original carrier frequency. This allows reconstitution of the original stereo carrier, and hence the stereo signal. 2. Single-sideband suppressed-carrier (SSB-SC) is a telecommunication technique, which belongs to the Amplitude modulation class. The information represented by the modulating signal is contained in both the upper and the lower sidebands. Since each modulating frequency fc produces corresponding upper and lower side-frequencies fc + fi and fc fi it is not necessary to transmit both side-bands. Either one can be suppressed at the transmitter without any loss of information. 3. Independent sideband (ISB) is an AM single sideband mode which is used with some AM radio transmissions. Normally each sideband carries identical information, but ISB modulates two different input signals one on the upper sideband, the other on the lower sideband. This is used in some kinds of AM stereo (sometimes known as the Kahn system), but is generally otherwise prohibited in the U.S. by the FCC. ISB is a compromise between double sideband (DSB) and single sideband (SSB) the other is vestigial sideband (VSB). If the sidebands are out of phase with each other, then phase modulation (PM) of the carrier occurs. AM and PM together then create quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). ISB may or may not have the carrier suppressed. Suppressed-carrier ISB was employed in point-to-point (usually overseas) radiotelephony and radioteletype by shortwave (HF). In military use, ISB usually referred to a close pair of FSK radioteletype channels which could be demodulated by a single receiver, and employed in fleet broadcast, point-to-point, and between larger vessels and shore stations on HF and UHF. 4. A vestigial sideband (in radio communication) is a sideband that has been only partly cut off or suppressed. Television broadcasts (in analog video formats) use this method if the video is transmitted in AM, due to the large bandwidth used. It may also be used in digital transmission, such as the ATSC standardized 8-VSB. The Milgo 4400/48 modem (circa 1967) used vestigial sideband and phase-shift keying to provide 4800-bit/s transmission over a 1600 Hz channel.

The video baseband signal used in TV in countries that use NTSC or ATSC has a bandwidth of 6 MHz. To conserve bandwidth, SSB would be desirable, but the video signal has significant low frequency content (average brightness) and has rectangular synchronising pulses. The engineering compromise is vestigial sideband modulation. In vestigial sideband the full upper sideband of bandwidth W2 = 4 MHz is transmitted, but only W1 = 1.25 MHz of the lower sideband is transmitted, along with a carrier. This effectively makes the system AM at low modulation frequencies and SSB at high modulation frequencies. The absence of the lower sideband components at high frequencies must be compensated for, and this is done by the RF and IF filters.