FM Generation

&
FM Detection
Prepared by
Sam Kollannore U.
Asst. Professor in Electronics
M.E.S. College, Marampally
FM Generation
Prime Requirement
Subsidiary Requirement
Methods
Direct method
Capacitance / inductance of an LC oscillator tank is varied in
proportion to the voltage supplied by the modulation circuits
Reactance FET
Bipolar transistor
Vacuum tube
Varactor diode
Indirect method
FM generation through Phase modulation (Armstrong method)
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Basic FET reactance modulator
Impedance z seen at A-A is reactive made inductive or
capacitive by a single component change
Value of this reactance is proportional to the transconductance
of the device, which can be made to depend on the gate bias
and its variation
Connected across the tank circuit of the oscillator to be
frequency modulated
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Theory
To determine z, a voltage v is applied to the terminals A-A
between which the impedance is to be measured and the resulting
current i is calculated.
Impedance =applied voltage/resulting current
To make the impedance to be pure capacitive
1. Bias network current i
b
must be negligible compared to the
drain current. (i
b
<<i)
2. Gate-to-Drain impedance (X
c
) must be greater than the Gate-
to-Source impedance (R) by more than five fold. (X
c
>>R)
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RC g C
fC RC fg R g
X
X
R g
X
j z
R X If
R
jXc
g
R g
jX R
jX R
RV g
v
i
v
z
jX R
RV g
V g i
R
jX R
V
R i V Now
m eq
eq m m
c
eq
m
c
c
m
m
c
c
m
c
m
g m
c
b g
=
= = =
=
>>

|
.
|

\
|
=

= =

= =

= =
as written reactance pure a is A - A at device the of impedance input the
conditions such under that seen is it eaquation above the From
2
1
2
1
as written be may It
) 4 ( reactance) e (capacitiv
to reduce will equation the ,
) 3 ( 1
1
is A - A ls at termina seen Z Impedance
) 2 ( . is current drain FET
) 1 ( . .

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observations
1. Equivalent capacitance C
eq
depends on the device
transconductance and can be varied by the bias voltage.
2. This capacitance can be adjusted to any value by varying the
components R and C.
3. The expression g
m
RC has the correct dimensions of
capacitance.
4. Gate-to-drain impedance Xc must be larger than the Gate-
to-source impedance R.(ie. X
c
>>R)
5. Resistive component for this particular FET reactance
modulator will be 1/g
m
vary with the applied modulating
voltage. ie. acts as variable resistance and appear across the
tank circuit of the master oscillator varying its Q and
therefore its output voltage. ie. a certain amount of AM will
be created. Therefore oscillator being modulated must be
followed by an amplitude limiter.


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Types of Reactance Modulators
Name Z
GD
Z
GS
Condition Reactance Formula
RC capacitive C R X
c
>>R C
eq
=g
m
RC
RC inductive R C R >>X
c
L
eq
=RC/g
m
RL inductive L R X
L
>>R L
eq
=L/g
m
R
RL capacitive R L R >>X
L
C
eq
=g
m
L/R
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Varactor Diode Modulator
Diode is reverse biased to provide the junction capacitance
effect and since this bias is varied by the modulating voltage
which is in series with it, the junction capacitance will also
vary, causing the oscillator frequency to change accordingly.
Limited applications
Used together with a reactance modulator to provide
automatic frequency control.
Used for remote tuning
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Stabilized Reactance Modulator - AFC
Reactance modulator cannot operate on crystal controlled
oscillator.
But it must have the stability of a crystal oscillator if it is to be the
part of a commercial transmitter
Achieved by Stabilized Reactance modulator - corrects any drift in
the average frequency of the master oscillator.
Reactance modulator operates on the tank circuit of an LC
oscillator

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Isolated by a buffer
Amplitude limiters for noise elimination
Amplified by Class C power amplifiers
Fraction of output from the limiter is fed to a mixer
Difference signal from the mixer is amplified and fed to Phase
Discriminator
Discriminator produces a DC voltage corresponding to its
input signal frequency Dc correcting voltage
Output of discriminator is connected to the reactance
modulator so that it corrects any drift in the average
frequency of the master oscillator.
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Crystal oscillators cannot be successfully frequency
modulated
LC oscillators are not stable enough for
communication/broadcast purpose
Stabilized reactance modulators are complex in nature.
So indirect method is used FM generation through
Phase modulation.
Based on Crystal oscillators shows high frequency
stability often used.
Indirect Method of FM Generation
Armstrong Method
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System terminates at the output of
combining network
Remaining blocks (mixers and multipliers)
are used to convert NBFM into WBFM.
Indirect Method of FM Generation
Armstrong Method
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Principle of operation using vector diagrams
AM signal
(amplitude
varies no
phase/frequency
variation)
AM voltage added to an
unmodulated voltage keeping
90
0
apart to produce some
phase modulation (complex
and nonlinear)
Solution: carrier of AM
removed Two
sidebands are added to
the unmodulated voltage
As the modulation increases, phase deviation also increases thus phase
modulation is obtained
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Our requirement is FM so PM may be changed into
FM by prior bass boosting of the modulation so the
modulating voltage is equalized before it enters the
balanced modulator using a simple RL equalizer
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Effect of frequency changing on an FM signal
Effect of frequency doubler both centre frequency and
deviation are increased by the same factor.
fc 2fc+2 and 2fc-2 ie. Frequency deviation is doubled
to 2. Hence modulation index is also doubled.
Effect of mixer centre frequency changed without changing its
maximum deviation.
fc mixed with fo fc-fo+ and fc-fo- (considering the
difference signal)
It is possible to raise the modulation index 9 fold without
affecting the centre frequency by multiplying both by 9 and
mixing the result with a signal having frequency 8 times the
original frequency
Further considerations in Armstrong System refer Kennedy.
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Basic FM Demodulators
Conditions
1. Conversion should be done efficiently
2. Conversion should be done linearly
3. Detection circuit should be insensitive to amplitude
changes
4. Should be simple in operation with very simple
adjustments only
Basic method:
Converting the Frequency modulated IF voltage of
constant amplitude into a voltage which is both frequency
and amplitude modulated
This voltage is then applied to a diode detector which
reacts only to amplitude changes and ignores the
frequency variations
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Slope Detection
Frequency modulated signal fed to a tuned circuit whose resonant
frequency is tuned to one side of the centre frequency of the FM signal.
Output will have an amplitude proportional to the frequency deviation of
the input carrier.
This voltage is applied to a diode detector with an RC load of suitable time
constant

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Drawbacks of slope detector
Ineffecient
Linear only along a limited frequency range
Reacts to all amplitude changes
Difficult to adjust (two different tunings)
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Balanced Slope Detector
Travis detector/Triple tuned discriminator/Amplitude discriminator
Uses two slope detectors connected back to back to the opposite
ends of a centre tapped transformer
Hence fed 180
0
out of phase
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Primary tuned to f
c
(which is the IF)
Top secondary tuned above the IF by an amount f ie f
c
+f
Bottom secondary tuned below the IF by an amount f ie f
c
f
Diode detector with RC load
Output taken across the series combination of the two loads
Working principle explanation
Input freq =fc; Voltage across T1 and T2 are same ; V
0
=0
Input freq =fc +f; Output of D1 >output of D2; V
0
is positive and max.
Input freq =f
c
f; Output of D2 will be large negative ; Output of D1 is small
positive; V
0
is negative and max.

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S-shaped Frequency modulation characteristics
More efficient than slope detector
Difficult to align (Three different tuning)
Better linearity but not good enough
No amplitude limiting

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Phase Discriminator
Centre tuned discriminator/Foster Seeley discriminator
Advantages
Primary and secondary tuned to the centre frequency of the
incoming signal ie. simple to align
Better linearity than slope detector
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1. Voltage applied to each diode =Primary voltage +Corresponding
half of secondary voltage
2. Primary voltage and secondary voltages are
i) exactly 90
0
out of phase when f
in
=f
c
ii) less than 90
0
out of phase when f
in
>f
c
iii) more than 90
0
out of phase when f
in
<f
c

3. Since the phase difference between primary and secondary
windings differ, then the corresponding vector sums will also
differ.
i.e. individual diode output voltages will be equal only at fc. At all
other frequencies, the output of one diode will be greater than
that of the other.
Thus the magnitude of the output will depend on the deviation of
the input frequency from f
c
.

Phase Discriminator Principle

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Phase Discriminator - Phasor Diagrams
L
3
is an RF choke having large reactance compared to C & C
4
Hence voltage across L
3
; V
L
V
12
Voltage applied to D
1
; V
ao
=V
ac
+V
L
=V
ab
+V
12

Voltage applied to D
2
; V
bo
=V
bc
+V
L
=- V
ac
+V
L
=-V
ab
+V
12
Now V
ab
=V
ao
V
bo
V
ao
V
bo


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Frequency response of the phase discriminator
Drawback
Does not provide any amplitude limiting


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Ratio Detector
Modified discriminator circuit to provide amplitude
limiting
Sum voltage V
ao
+ V
bo
remains constant and the
difference voltage varies
Any variations in the magnitude of this sum voltage is
considered as spurious suppressed in Ratio Detector
thus amplitude limiting is achieved.
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Basic changes
One of the diode is reversed
Large capacitor C
5

Output is taken from a different point





Operation
With Diode D
2
reverse biased, O is now positive w.r.t. b
V
ab
is now a sum voltage rather than difference as in
the phase discriminator.
C
5
will keep this sum voltage constant.
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Output is now taken between O and O with O as ground
point.
R
5
=R
6
V
0
=V
bo
V
bo
=V
ab
/
2
V
bo
=(V
ao
+V
bo
)/
2
V
bo
=(V
ao
V
bo
)/
2
Behaves identical to that of discriminator
Output characteriscs S - shape

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Amplitude Limiting
If V
12
is a constant DC no current flowing to charge/discharge
the capacitor C
5

If V
12
tries to increase, extra diode current flows, charging C
5
.
Voltage V
ab
remains constant at first because voltage across C
5

does not respond suddenly.
Current in the diodes load has risen, but the voltage across the
load has not changed. i.e the load impedance has decreased
Secondary of the ratio detector transformer is more heavily
damped Q falls gain of the amplifier driving the ratio detector
falls - thus counteracting the initial rise in input voltage.
Reverse operation occurs when the input voltage fall i.e. gain of
the driving amplifier rises.
Diode Variable damping - varying the gain of an amplifier by
changing the damping of its tuned circuit maintaining a constant
output voltage.

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