A New CPFSK Demodulation Approach for Software Defined Radio

Abstract

This paper proposes a new coherent Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK) demodulation technique for software defined radio platform, based on a new Digital Phase Locked Loop (DPLL) architecture. The proposed DPLL addresses the frequency dependence on classic DPLL architectures found in the literature. In classical approaches, the loop filter constants are dependent on the frequency level of the FSK transmitted symbols. The proposed approach applies a simpler feedback loop, with a single integrator and a phase detector architecture based on the small-angle approximation [Formula: see text], which resulted in a DPLL totally independent of frequency. The proposed demodulator has been implemented in Very High Speed Integrated Circuits (VHSIC) Hardware Description Language (VHDL) and evaluated for continuous-phase frequency shift keying (CPFSK) and Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK) signals. For CPFSK signals, the demodulator has been evaluated for 2, 4 and 8 frequency levels, with modulation indexes [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively. For evaluation of GMSK signals, several Gaussian filter bandwidths were considered. In addition, a brief analysis for 2-CPFSK and GMSK is presented over multipath and carrier frequency offset. Results show that the proposed method presents a significantly reduced bit error rate when compared to other coherent methods presented in the literature.