Performance of DSBSC in the
Presence of Noise
3rd May 2025
ECE181403: Analog Communication
MODULE 7: Noise
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MODULE 7: Noise
• Sources and characteristics of different noise.
• Concept of White Gaussian Noise.
• Noise Calculation: Noise Temperature, Noise Bandwidth
and Noise Figure, Performance of Analog Communication
systems in the presence of noise;
• Calculation of SNR for i) DSB-FC ii) DSB-SC iii) SSB-SC
and iv) FM.
• Threshold effect in FM.
DSB-SC
Modulation
Overview
• DSB-SC is a linear modulation
scheme where the carrier is
suppressed
• All transmitted power is
concentrated in the two
sidebands carrying the
information
• Requires coherent
demodulation at the receiver
for accurate recovery of the
message
Spectrum of DSBSC
DSB Received Signal with Noise
• DSB Carrier Signal:
• Received Signal with Noise:
Local Oscillator at Receiver
• Local Oscillator:
• The phase difference ϕc − ϕ determines:
• How well the receiver is synchronized
• The magnitude loss in the recovered signal
Multiplication (Mixer Stage)
• Multiply Received Signal with Local Oscillator:
• Substituting:
• This results in sum and difference frequencies.
• High frequencies will be removed by the lowpass filter
Apply Lowpass Filter
• Lowpass Filter Removes High-Frequency Terms:
• The signal amplitude is scaled by cos(ϕc − ϕ)
• The output noise is a combination of both nI(t) and nQ(t), projected onto
the local oscillator’s phase axis
• If Perfect Sync (ϕ = ϕc):
Ideal Coherent Demodulation — Phase
Matched
• Coherent Receiver with PLL:
• Reduced Demodulator Output:
• When ϕ = ϕc
Output Signal Power
• m(t) is zero-mean, with
average power:
• The signal at the output is:
• The output signal power is:
Output Noise Power
Output SNR of Coherent Receiver
• PSD of Bandpass Noise:
• Total Bandpass Noise Power:
• Output SNR:
Baseband SNR Equivalence
• Baseband signal power is defined as:
• From the output SNR:
• Therefore:
• Coherent detection restores full baseband SNR
• Gives Figure of Merit = 1
DSB-SC Performance Characteristics
Feature Value / Comment
Carrier Suppressed — not transmitted
100% (No power wasted on
Power Efficiency
carrier)
Bandwidth 2W, same as DSB-FC
Receiver Requires coherent detection
Figure of Merit 1.0 (Ideal)
Threshold Effect Absent in linear detection
Comparison with DSB-FC
Metric DSB-FC DSB-SC
Transmitted Carrier Present Absent
Receiver Type Envelope Detector Coherent Detector
Reduced by carrier
Output SNR Maximum possible
overhead
FoM 1
Higher (requires
Complexity Low
synchronization)
Summary
• DSB-SC is theoretically optimal among AM systems for noise
performance
• However, practical limitations (e.g., difficulty in generating a
phase-aligned carrier at the receiver) have historically limited its
commercial use
• Still widely used in systems where coherent reference recovery is
feasible (e.g., telemetry, satellite links, QAM baseband structures)
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Text/Reference Books:
1. Haykin S., "Communications Systems", John Wiley and Sons.
2. Proakis J. G. and Salehi M., "Communication Systems Engineering", Pearson
Education, 2002.
3. Taub H. and Schilling D.L., "Principles of Communication Systems”, Tata
McGraw Hill, 2001.
4. Wozencraft J. M. and Jacobs I. M., ``Principles of Communication
Engineering'', John Wiley, 1965.
5. B.P. Lathi, “Analog and Digital Communication”
6. A. Bruce Carlson, Paul B. Crilly, Janet C. Rutledge, “Communication
System”, Mc Graw Hill
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