Experimental Study of Voice Communication Over a Bandlimited Channel Using Variable Bit Width Delta Modulation.

摘要

A variable bit width delta modulator (VBWDM) demodulator was designed, built and tested to achieve voice and music communication using a bandlimited channel. Only baseband modulation is applied to the input signal. Since there is no 'clock' used during the digitizing process at the modulator, no bit synchronization is required for signal recovery in the receiver. The modulator is a hybrid design using 7 linear and 3 digital integrated circuits (IC), and the demodulator uses 2 linear ICs. A lowpass filter (LPF) is used to simulate the channel. The average number of bits sent over the channel is measured with a frequency counter at the output of the modulator. The minimum bandwidth required for the LPF is determined according to the intelligibility of the recovered message. Measurements indicate an average bit rate required for intelligible voice transmission is in the range of 2 to 4 kilobits per seconds (kbps) and between 2 to 5 kbps for music. The channel 3 dB bandwidth required is determined to be 1.5 kilohertzs. Besides the hardware simplicity, VBWDM provides an option for intelligible digitized voice transmission at very low bit rates without requiring synchronization. Another important feature of the modulator design is that no bits are sent when no signal is present at the input which saves transmitter power (important for mobile stations) and reduces probability of intercept and jamming in military applications. Keywords: Voice communication, Delta modulation, Analog-to-digital converter, Bit rate, Variable bit width, Hard limiter, DM, VBWDM, Radiofrequency wave propagation, Theses. (JG)