IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, APRIL 1977

433

Concise Papers
Simplified MSK Signaling Technique
FRANK AMOROSO, SENIORMEMBER,IEEE, JAMES A. KIVETT, MEMBER,IEEE
AND

Abstruct-Modulation and demodulation in the minimum (frequency)-shift keying (MSK) format are reduced to the form of coherent biphase keying. Considerable simplification of circuitry is thus effected withoutsacrifice of performance. When theratio of the carrier frequency to the bit rate is high, then the technique described here does not require the precise relative phasing of any pair of oscillators in the transmitter. Experimentalresultsdemonstratethefeasibility of synthesizing the one filter that is unique to this signaling scheme. In the present instance, the filteris realized as a surface acoustic wave device.

I. EVOLUTION O F A SIMPLE MSK SIGNAL

SYNTHESIZER AND DEMODULATOR Several authors [ 1] - [ 5 ] havenotedthattheminimum (frequency)-shift keying (MSK) format, with proper detection, offersthesamehighcommunicationsefficiencyascoherent biphase (or quadriphase) shift keying. The practical promise of realizing this efficiency is evident in the expression of the MSK signal as the sum of two antipodal pulse streams modulating the in-phase and quadrature channels of a single carrier. The present paper extends these results reducing by the MSK synthesizer t o simple a biphase modulator accepting the data serial in form. demodulation, The correspondingly, is performed with a biphase demodulator. The essential elements of the communications are link shown in Fig. 1. An arbitrary bit stream ak multiplies the local oscillator fl in a balanced modulator. The filter h(t), as the figure implies, is linear and time invariant. The output of the h(t) filter is the MSK signal. At the receiver, a properly phased fl enters a inbalanced demodulator whose output passes through a zonal filter for removal of double frequency terms. The result is the recovered bit stream a h . A matched filter may be introduced at the receiver to gain the usual performance improvements in noise. Thiswill be discussed in Section 111. The operation synthesis of this method depends on compliance with the original definition of MSK given by Doelz [ 1 ] with additional constraints recently stated by Sullivan 21 . [ During any keying interval of duration T, one of two frequencies, fl or f2, is transmitted, where fl and f2 stand in a special relationship to the link bit rate 1/T. For some selected integer
I2

In randomdatatransmission,theresultingspectrum will be f = (211 1)/4T. , centered on an apparent carrier located at The frequencies fl and f2 have been referred to [ 3I as mark and space frequencies, respectively. of a Fig.2showsthe MSK wave synthesizedasthesum stream of modulated pulses at the bit rate 1/T for the choice n = 2. Strictly for graphical clarity, the successive pulses are shown alternately in Fig. 2(a) and (b). Note that all pulses are identicalexceptfor sign andtimedisplacement.There is a regular time overlap between the pulses in Fig. 2(a) and those in Fig. 2(b), and the MSK wave of Fig. 2(c) is at all times the sum of two such overlapping pulses. Note that the frequency turns out to be constant over each interval of duration T, as prescribed in the MSK format. A distinct, but equally legitimate MSK wave for IZ = 2 is given in Fig. 3. The transitions between fi and f2 take place at the peaks of the wave rather than at the zero crossings, which of was the case in the more familiar form Fig. 2. The enhanced 3 is theresultofthedifferent waveformcontinuityinFig. formsofbasicpulsesshowninFig.3(a)and(b).Herethe pulses have zero slope at the bit boundaries, a property not foundinFig.2.The signs andtimeplacementsofpulsesin Fig. 3 are the same as in Fig. 2, and the resulting pattern of frequencies is the same. The basic data pulse for general IZ will be shown in Section I1 to be

for O G t G 2 T (2) = 0, otherwise

where @ accountsforthedifferencebetweentheformsof MSK in Figs. 2 and 3. Thisexpressionforp(t)isconsistentwiththeprevailing concept of MSK pulse structure. The factor sin nt/2T is the individual pulse modulation envelope, shown as dashed lines in Figs. 2 and 3. The factor sin [ ( ( ~ I-t l)/%T)nt+ @I represents z the apparent carrier at f,. To confirm that overlapping pulses appear to derive from in-phase and quadrature sources of f,, it is only necessary to note that

n + l
f 2 =-

2T

n
f1=-.

2T

(1) which means that from pulse to pulse the phase off, appearing in the pulse is, with respect to some reference phase, shifted by some odd multiple of n/2. ThesynthesizercircuitofFig.1operatesasfollows.The data wave entering the balanced modulator is so phased that every zero crossing corresponds with some voltage peak of the local oscillator fi. In view of ( l ) , there are exactly 11 half-cycles

Paper approvedby the Editor for Communication Theory of the IEEE CommunicationsSociety for publicationwithout oralpresentation. Manuscript received August 18, 1976; revised December 17, 1976. The authors are with the Hughes Aircraft Company, Fullerton, CA 92634.

434

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, APRIL 1977

BIT STREAM ak

A
0

LOCAL OSCILLATOR fl

MATCHED FILTER

PASS FILTER

0
DATA PULSE

LOCAL OSCILLATOR 11

B I T STREAM ak

Fig. 1.

Transmissionand reception scheme.

(Q)

I-

DATA

PULSE

1-

(0)

DATA

PULSE

1-

(A)

-1

DATA

PULSE

1-

fbl

ZT

3T

2T

3T

Fig. 2.

Resolution into data pulses, n = 2, @ = n/2.(a) In-phase pulses. (b) Quadrature pulses. (c) Transmitted total.

Fig. 3.

Resolution into data pulses, n = 2, @ = 0. (a) Quadrature pulses. (b) In-phase pulses. (c) Transmitted total.

of fi ineachkeyinginterval T. Eachkeyinginterval,therefore, 11. ANALYSIS O F THE SYNTHESIZER CIRCUIT presents a properly signed burst of 11 half-cycles of fi at the The impu1se response h ( t ) is input of the h ( t ) filter. Now the h ( t ) filter is so designedthat impulse its response constant envelope is just a burst of I I 1 half-cycles of f 2 , also of duration T. The response of h ( t ) filter h ( r ) = sin ( 27rf2 t ) = sin to the typical input burst is just the required p ( t ) , and the h overall output of the ( t ) filter is then the requiredMSK signal. This particular circuit will produce p ( t ) for @ = 0 only. = 0, otherwise Hence, the remainder of the present paper will be concerned $ = 0. J typical forthe burst input and 1 bit is casewith the

(4)

CONCISE PAPERS

43 5
nt
(2n

+ 1)

and

(5)
where the ak represent the data and 6' represents the relative phase of f 1 and the data transitions. The response of h ( t ) to the typical input burst spans T : 2

which agree with ( 2 ) for 8 = 0, as mentioned. Now direct substitution will bear out that for n even, po(t) = p,[t f (2m

+ 1)Tl,

for all integer m

( 1 la)

rt

and for n odd, p,(t) = - p e [ t f ( 2 m

+ 1 ) T ] ,f o r

all integer m.

( 1 lb)

(h+l)T

sin ( 2 n f l x

+ 8 ) sin 27rf2(t

x) dx,

for ( k + l ) T < f
0,

< ( k + 2)T
(6)

otherwise.

Thus, for n even, it is directly evident that all transmitted pulses have the same form except for sign (the data multiplier a h ) andtimelocation.For IZ odd,notethata sign reversal from pulse to pulse is induced by the fact that there are an oddnumber of half-cycles of thefrequency fi perkeying interval. The input pulse g k ( t ) is, in effect, inverted on successive keying intervals. The quadrature carrier property is seen the in relation between the factors

Appropriate manipulations will reduce p e ( t ) to the form sin

and

+ [7
(2n 1)

nt]

cos

[? +
(2n

1)

in

p,(t)

and

p,(t),

respectively.

(7)
Substitutions from (1)will reduce (7) to p @ , ( t ) =COS

Duringanykeyinginterval,thereis a n overlapbetween p , ( t ) and p,(t). The constant envelope property of MSK and the emergence of instantaneous f l and f 2 follow from summing p , ( t ) and p,(t):

-t

71

: [ 2 T
1 2n

n - sin [ ( 2 n 2+ 1) - t + 8 ] T
___

+1

2T
It is interesting to explore the consequences of allowing 8 to depart from n/2 in the expressions (8a) and (8b). The sum p e , ( t ) and p e e ( t ) will not have a constant envelope, as Fig. 4 illustrates for n = 2 and 8 = O..The terms
-__ sin 1

for all odd values of k. and to T

(2n + 1 )

cos

[2

1
sin

T and

2n

-0 1

[y] } (2rr + 1) n t / T

+1

(5

t -0)

cos

( 7rt ) 2n + 17 -

1 for all even values of k. Observe that when and only when (8a) and (8b) reduce to

0 = n / 2 , the expressions
in (sa) and (8b), respectively, become undesirable for 0 f n / 2

436
A 0
A

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, APRIL 1977

DESIRED

-3T T 2T

-A -

-A

AT

A I C

0 -

UNDESIRED

0 .--..L-

I I

-A

2 T

3T

-A

3 T

2 T

A ,

/-DESIRED

,--DESIRED

-A

'

2T

31

-A

A -

UNDESIRED
I I

A .

0 -A

0 .
3T

2 T

-A

,
T
2 T
3T

A -

TRANSMITTED L TOTA

A
0

0 -

Fig. 4; Effect of allowing e = 0 when n = 2 and A =

T/7~((2n 2 ) / ( 2 n i+ 1)).

-A

Fig. 5. Effect of allowing e = 0 when rz = 16 and A T/n ((2n 2)/(2n 1)).

because they conflict with the desired envelope. However, for 1) causes the undesired terms to large n , the factor - 1/(2n vanish,leaving the resulting MSK synthesis indepedent of 0 . Fig. 5 illustrates this for n = 16 by showing the desired and 6 = 0. The departure from envelope undesired terms for constancy is considerably reduced.

111. ANALYSIS OF THE DEMODULATOR

DemodulationofthetypeshowninFig. 1 hasconventionally been predicated the on assumption the that data bandwidth is small compared with the band center frequency. That assumption will be maintained for the present purposes I of analysis; equivalently, z % 1. Now the phase of the received wavelreckoned with respectto f is called a(t).According t o t h e , MSK format, a ( t ) is linear with time over each keying interval, f. , traversing just *7~/2 with respect to an apparent carrier at The sign indicates that f2 was transmitted and the - sign indicates that fl was transmitted. Now the phase at the mixer , output will be a(t) - 2 m t , where s = fl - f = -1/4T. Low-pass filtering produces a baseband wave equal to cos

The waveform relationships in the demodulator are shown in Fig. 6, where all phase plots are referenced to the apparent carrier phase 2rrfct. Here a data sequence is traced through the steps modulation demodulation. of and Reading from the bottom, Fig. 6(a) shows first the data stream. Fig. 6(b) and the solid line in Fig. 6(c) show the instantaneous frequency1 and receiver instantaneousphase of thetransmitted signal. The matched filter is assumed absent the being. for time The dashed in 6(c) the line Fig. is instantaneous phase the of receiver local oscillator. It "slips" 90" per bit with respect t o a f at zero , phase axis which represents an 'apparent carrier at phase.Theneedforthecorrectstartingphase of thelocal oscillator is typical of any coherentPSK system. Fig. 6(d) shows the instantaneous phase difference between the local oscillator fl and the received signal. This difference eitheradvances 180" over a bit interval~or remains constant over that interval. The cosine of the difference phase is, then, the recovered data, 6(e). Fig. This recovery verified is by comparison with Fig. 6(a). It is interesting t o analyze by tracing individual pulses that

transmitter.

otherwise.

CONCISE PAPERS

437

RECOVERED BIT STREAM

'
I

PHASE M T O R T P U T AIXE U

I
I

-180

PHASE TRANSMITTED

Fig. 6.

Phase relationships. (a) Bit stream. (b) Frequency transmitted. (c) Phase transmitted. (d) Phase at mixer output. (e) Recovered bit stream. are shown in Fig. 7(f), and the resulting contributions to the I l ( t ) output are shown in Fig. 7(g). Note that all contributing pulses in Fig. 7(g) have the same form. The total I l ( t ) in Fig. 7(h) is, again, the required recovered bit stream. Now it is clear that all the peak values of the data pulses in Fig. 7(d) and (e) are undiminished through multiplication by the factors in Fig. 7(f).Therefore,therecoveredbitstream, Fig. 7(h), has the same signal strength as would have come out [ 11 withseparatein-phase ofaconventionaldemodulation and quadrature channels. The introductionof a data pulse matched filter for operation inwhitenoise will generallycauseatimespreadingofthe typical half cosine of pulses MSK [Fig. and 7(d) (e)]. According t o established theory [6], the matched filter in the RFsection(Fig.1) will treatthein-phaseandquadrature channels equally. With conventional demodulation by a locally supplied f,, thematchedfilteringwouldproduceatypical pulse output:

the demodulator has the demonstrated effect. This is done by representing modulation-demodulation the format again in terms of pulses, as in Fig. 7. The half cosinepulsesinFig.7(d)and(e)representthe conventional in-phase and quadrature pulse trains familiar to MSK. These pulse trains are called I ( t ) and Q ( t ) , respectively. With fl used, the new in-phase and quadrature outputs, called I l ( t ) and Q l ( t ) , are given in terms of the conventional( t ) and I Q ( t )by a known [ 6 ] transformation:

I l ( t ) = I ( t ) cos (27rst

+ ( Y O ) -tQ ( t )sin (27r3t + a o )

ao)
(13)

Q l ( t ) = Q < t cos (27rst f cyo) - I ( t ) sin (2nst f )

where s = -1 / 4 T asbeforeand a, isthestartingphase (assumed 0 in Fig. 6). The multiplier functions cos(2nst a,) and sin ( 2 m t

+ a,)

43 8
RECOVERED BIT S T R E A M

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, APRIL 1 9 7 7

0
I

I ( t ) COS 2nSl

Q(t) S I N Pnrt

Ilt)

PULSES IN-PHASE

Q(t1

QUADRATURE PULSES

FREQUENCY
2
(b)

BIT STREAM
(a)

Fig. 7.

Pulse synthesis, recovered bit stream. (a) Bit stream. (b) Frequency. (c) Phase. (d) Quadrature pulses. (e) Inphase pulses. (f) cos 2nst and sin 27rst. (g) Z ( t ) cos 27rst and Q ( t ) sin 27rst. (h) Recovered bit stream. Routine manipulations reduceR ( t ) to the form
-

R(t)= p(t T -=

x ) p ( - x ) dx

= 0,

otherwise (15)

where
7X 1

p(x) = cos - , 2T = 0,

-T<x<T
otherwise

(14)

andwherethefactor1/Tprecedingtheintegralnormalizes the peak ofR ( t ) .

as illustrated in Fig. 8(a). Demodulation with fl will convert R ( t ) into R l ( t ) = R ( t ) cos 2nst, plottedinFig.8(b).The demodulatoroutputpulsestream will thenhavetheform C a k R l ( t - k T ) , as plotted in Fig. 9. Note that the freedom from intersymbol interference inherent in R ( t ) is preserved in R l ( t ) because R l ( t ) haszerocrossingsattheadjacentbit is alsopresampling times t = rtT. The peak value of unity

CONCISE PAPERS

439

-2.00

-1.50

-1.00

-0.50

1.50 1.00 0.00

0.50

2.06

2.50

TIME IN B I T INTERVALS

(b)

Fig. 8.

Effect of matched filtering on pulses. (a) Matched filtered pulse envelope. (b) Pulse contribution to recovered bit stream.
2.00

1 .oo

0.00

-1.00

.
0 1
2.00

1
~

-2.00 . 0.00

4.00

6.00

8.00

10.00

12.00

TIME IN BIT INTERVALS

Fig. 9 .

Matched filtered recovered bit stream.

served from R ( t ) to R l ( t ) . These properties confirm the Fig.10(a).Thepulseshape is very close toacosineshaped earlier statements that the MSK modulation and demodulation envelope, and the instantaneous frequency within the pulse is system presented here has the same communications efficiency2precisely 82.5 MHz. Fig. 10(b) shows the frequency domain as conventional coherent biphase. response of the same filter, with a repetitive pulse input. When driven with a pseudorandom data bit stream, the filter produces IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS nearly a constant output envelope, the spectral and first sidebands are approximately 2 3 dB down from the main lobe, Several transceivers were built incorporating the modulator , just as they should be for an ideal MSK signal. Because of the and demodulator approach shown in Fig. 1. These used an f relatively transducer short lengths, no noticeable filter of 8 2 . 5 MHz as intermediate an frequency a andkeying degradation observed the was over operating temperature interval T of 0.1 ,us. Both the pulse shaping filters h ( t ) and the range from o t o SO'C. datapulsematchedfilterweresurfaceacousticwavedevices As a result of additional filtering included in the transmitter constructed on lithium niobate substrates. The local oscillator to reduce interference adjacent to channel users, a total fi was at 80 MHz for both the transmitter and the receiver, amplitude modulation of about five percent was introduced. thus producing 17 = 16. No attemptwasmadetovarythephaseoftheswitching The pulse shaping filter used a wide-band input transducer, transients.However,it is suspectedthattherelativelylarge and it had an output transducer with an impulse response of I?) and relatively the slow number of half-cycles (large 85 MHz. Thetimedomain approximately17half-cyclesat switching (about 5 ns) would have made it difficult to demonresponse of this filter to a 0.1 ,us pulse at 80 MHz is shown in strate any significant relationship between switching phase and Communications efficiency is measured by error rate performance. amplitude modulation.

(b)

(b)

Fig. 10. Transmitted signal characteristics. (a) Data pulse envelope. Scale: 0.05 ps/div. (b) Transmitted spectrum. Scales: horizontal, 5 MHz/div; vertical, 10 dB/div. (Center frequency of the display is 80 MHz.) The receiver pulse matching filter used an input transducer with 16 half-cycles at 80 MHz and an output transducer with 17 half-cycles at 85 MHz. The time domain impulse response and the swept CW spectral response of this filter are shown in Fig. 11. Again, the main lobe and the first sidebands are very close t o predictions. The higher order sidebands are relatively unimportant both because of their small energy content and because the other receive filtering suppresses them anyway. The transceivers sampled the low-pass filtered outputs and performed further digital processing o n t h e signals, which were highly redundant. Because of the complications due to special filtering added the to transceivers due the and to digital processing, no meaningful bit error rate data are available.

Fig. 11.

Characteristics of the matched filter.(a) Impulse response of the matched filter. Scale: 0.05 ps/div. (b) Frequency response of the matched filter. Scales: horizontal, 5 MHz/div; vertical, 10 dB/div. (Center frequency of the display is 82.5 MHz.)

bit rate is high, the phasing of the transmitter local oscillator with respect to the data keying not critical. is Theattendantconceptthatallpulsesonthechannelbe identical in form was anticipated in a previous work [ 7 ] on coherent quadrature modulation. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors are indebted to F. L. Morse for the analytical derivations presented herein and for his careful reading of the manuscript.

REFERENCES
[ 11 M. L. Doelz and E. T. Heald, Minimum-shift data communication svstem. U.S. Patent 2 977 417. Mar. 28. 1961. [2] W . A . Sullivan, High-capacitymicrowave system for digital data transmission, IEEE Truns. Commun. (Concise Papers), vol. COM20, part I, PP. 466-470, June 1972. [ 3 ] R.. DeBuda; Coherent demodulation of frequency-shift keying

V. CONCLUSIONS
The MSK transmissionschemepresentedhereinrequires fewer components (mixers, filters, and digital logic elements) than previously proposed schemes. When the ratio of carrier to

CONCISE PAPERS

44 1
second problem, some means of deconvolving the output of the equalizer is still required. The Viterbi algorithm could be used t o carry out estimation of the symbol sequence in this latter situation. of both finite The application of tapped delay equalizers and infinite length to the second problem has previously been considered by Qureshi and Newhall [7], Falconer and Magee [4], and Cantoni and Kwong [SI, [61. For the general equalization problem, the optimization of both the equalizer and best linear combination of symbols is considered. The coefficients of the best linear combination of symbols correspond a to finite memory desirable impulse response (DIR) of the equalized channel. The solution of this jointoptimizationproblem is presented,andresultsonthe performance of theequalizer as afunction of equalization delay and DIR memory length are derived. The optimum ULMMSE equalizer is shown to be a stable, realizable, finite dimensional recursive filter. The optimal DIR is shown to be the solution of an eigenvector problem. This latter result similar is to result tapped the for delay line equalizers as reportedin [ 4 ] and [SI. The advantage of the is finite equalizerdevelopedinthisconcisepaperisthatit dimensional and its performance is shown to be a monotonic function of both equalization delay and DIR memory length. Thisresultdoesnotnecessarilyholdforfinitetappeddelay line equalizers in the same situation. It is not valid to make a comparison with an infinite tapped delay line as it does not have a realizable impulse response. It is shown, however, that the performance of the ULMMSE equalizerapproaches uniformly the performance of the unrealizable infinite tapped delay A line. close relationbetweenthetwoDIRsinthe limiting case is also established by invoking some recent results [ 131 on properties the of eigenvectors of persymmetric matrices. 11. CHANNEL MODEL

[4]

[SI [6] [7]

with low deviation ratio, IEEE Trans. Commun. (Concise Papers), vol. COM-20, part I, pp. 429-435, June 1972. H. R. Mathwich, J . F. Balcewicz,and M. Hecht, The effect of tandembandand amplitude limitingof the Eb/No performance of minimum (frequency) shift keying (MSK), IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-22, pp. 1525-1540, Oct. 1974. F. Amoroso, Pulseand spectrum manipulation in the minimum (frequency) shift keying (MSK) format, IEEE Trans. Commun. (Corresp.), vol. COM-24, pp. 381-384, Mar. 1976. -, Note on coherent quadrature modulation, IEEE Trans. Commun. Technol., vol. COM-17, pp. 581-583, Oct. 1969. -, Bandwidth efficient modulation for voiceband data transmission, Telecommun., vol. 2, pp. 19-24, Apr. 1968.

Linear Minimum Mean-Square Error Estimators Applied to Channel Equalization

A. CANTON1 AND P. BUTLER
Abstruct-This concise paper investigates various aspects of the application of unbiased linear minimum mean-square error (ULMMSE) estimators to the equalization of channels used for digital data transmission. One application is to the equalization of the channel to a response free from intersymbol interference. Previous results regarding this application are clarified andextended. The other application is to the equalization of the channel to a finite short memory response. This stems from .an interest in reducing the complexity of the Viterbi algorithm.Variousnew results on the optimum ULMMSE equalizer and its performance are presented. In both applications, the optimum ULMMSE equalizer is a stable, realizable, finite dimensional recursive filter. I. INTRODUCTION

of the ULMMSE equalizerProblemconsideredintheabovementionedreferences.Ratherthanattempttominimizethe MSE of the equalizer output compared some with single delayed input symbol (no intersymbol interference equalization), the problem considered is to minimize the MSE of the equalizeroutputcomparedwithalinearcombination of a finitenumber of inputsymbols.Theformerproblem,isof course, a special case of the latter. In the first problem, symbol by symbol detection with a slicer is usually used, while in the
Paper approved by the Editor for Communication Theory of the. IEEE Communications Society for publication after presentation at the International Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, Patras, Greece,August 1976. ManuscriptreceivedApril 12, 1976; revised November 15, 1976. This work was supported by the Australian Research Grants Committee and the Radio Research Board. The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, UniNewcastle, of versity New South Wales, Australia.

where

= (ho,hl,

..., h N - - l ) is the channel impulse response

vector and { n h } is a sequence of independent identically N(0, distributed Gaussian random variables with distribution u2). The input sequence {uk} is assumed to be an uncorrelated p sequence of m-ary symbols with zero mean and variance 2 . It will be convenient to work with the state space representation of the channel, defined by

+ 1 ) = @ x ( k )+ G U h + l y ( k ) = ~ x ( k+ n ( k ) )
x(k
where
X(k)

6 [uk, uk-1.

.., uk-N+1]

G = [l,O;-,OIT