Bit Error Rate (BER) for frequency shift keying with coherent demodulation

Following the request by Siti Naimah, this post discuss the bit error probability for coherent demodulation of binary Frequency Shift Keying (BFSK) along with a small Matlab code snippet.

Using the definition provided in Sec 4.4.4 of [DIG-COMM-SKLAR]), in binary Frequency shift keying (BFSK), the bits 0’s and 1’s are represented by signals and having frequencies and respectively, i.e.

,

where

is the energy ,

is the symbol duration and

is an arbitrary phase (assume to be zero).


The two frequencies and are orthogonal, i.e.

and

.

Simple transmit-receive block diagram for binary frequency shift keying (FSK) can be as shown below.

Figure: Block diagram of FSK modulation and coherent demodulation

For analyzing the bit error rate with coherent FSK demodulation, let us compare the signaling waveform used by binary FSK when compared with binary PSK. The distance between the energy of the signaling waveform for:

(a) binary phase shift keying (BPSK) is (uses antipodal signaling)

(b) binary frequency shift keying (BFSK) is (uses orthogonal signaling)

 

Figure: Orthogonal and antipodal signaling

Using similar mathematical formulation used for BPSK, but with the distance between the signals reduced by half, the bit error probability for coherent binary frequency shift keying is

.

For obtaining the same bit error rate as BPSK, binary frequency shift keying requires around 3dB more . More details on the bit error curves with orthogonal and antipodal signals is discussed in Sec 3.2.5 of [DIG-COMM-SKLAR].

Simulation Model

Simple Matlab/Octave script for computing the bit error rate with FSK modulation. The code performs the following:

(a) Generation of random 1’s and 0’s

(b) Converting bits to appropriate frequency

(c) Passing through Additive White Gaussian Noise channel

(d) Demodulation at the receiver

(e) Counting the number of errors.

Click here to download Matlab/Octave script for computing Bit Error Rate with FSK modulation

Figure: Bit error probability with coherent demodulation of frequency shift keying

Hope this helps

Krishna

Reference

[DIG-COMM-SKLAR] Digital Communications: Fundamentals and Applications (2nd Edition), Bernard Sklar

22 thoughts on “Bit Error Rate (BER) for frequency shift keying with coherent demodulation

  1. what kind of method did you use to find the bit error rate?
    how does it vary if I am supposed find out BER by using monte-carlo iterations?

  2. I am trying to code 16-FSK modulator and then compute average energy.How can I do this? Your help will be appreciated.

  3. Hi krishna
    I cant understand number of symbole, where is
    k=log2M and for mfsk please help me.
    i want some information about it.
    thank you for your attention.

    1. @zardosht: Hmm… the k = log2(M) means, if we have M constellation points we can send k = log2(M) bits in a constellation symbol. For eg, with 16QAM we can send 4 bits together.

  4. Can someone help me out on this please. I am looking for MAT LAB PROGRAM TO IMPLEMENT HUFFMAN CODING.

    Thank you

  5. Can someone help me out on this please.
    For ISI channel with L real coeffs and BPSK modulation write a Viterbi algorithm decoder with decoding delay >0
    Using Matlab
    Plot BER vs SNR for varying delays

    I need the matlab code.
    Thank You

  6. hi krishna,

    i want to plot the BER vs Eb/No of fsk coherent and noncoherent on awgn and raleigh channels.
    can u help me in this regard?

    reply

  7. Hi Krishna.
    Your simulation is very useful for me.
    Krishna, I want to ask about continuous fsk. Is continuous phase FSK same with fsk? How we define continuous phase in fsk?

      1. Can we use MSK to modulate 4-ary or 8-ary? Because I think MSK is just to modulate binary. What do you think about that?

  8. @davis: Well, given that we need to send both 1Hz and 2Hz, I do not think that the data bandwidth becomes equal to the carrier separation. Given the above understanding, am unable to understand your perspective. Can you please provide more details.

  9. Hi Krishna
    i see that in the code the freqency for 0 is 1 Hz
    and for 1 2 Hz
    and that bit period is 1sec witch means that the data band width is the same as the seperation between the to carriers
    How is this possible?
    Thanks

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