Spectral shaping and digital synthesis of an M-ary time series

The use of pulse shaping to control transmitted spectral density precisely is examined. A digital filter architecture is described that not only mitigates the traditional problems of lengthy development intervals and cost manufacturing methods, but offers the additional features of intrinsically coding high-speed binary (M=2) data into M-ary symbols while ensuring highly reproducible, baud-normalized, transmitter pulse shaping. A conceptual basis for the digital synthesis method is first described, including a functional circuit appropriate to the simplest filter realizations. Spectral effects internal to the filter are considered, and a simple method to obtain desired transmitted spectra is outlined. It is shown that even relatively short pulses used in high-level modulation systems lead to impractical memory storage demands; however, the simple expedient of segmenting the finite impulse function greatly reduced the individual memory requirements, though it necessitates intermediate adding operations. Experimental examples illustrate the design methodology for quaternary (M=4) data signals in a Nyquist communication channel and serve as points of reference for addressing performance and design flexibility. >