Minimum‐Shift‐Keying

Abstract

Among the many bandwidth efficient constant envelope modulation schemes that fall in the class of continuous phase frequency modulations, minimum‐shift‐keying is undoubtedly the most popular of the group that transmit binary information. The reason for this stems perhaps from the fact that MSK can be viewed both from the standpoint of frequency modulation and pulse‐shaped offset quadrature phase‐shift‐keying thereby allowing a large degree of flexibility in the design of transmitter and receiver implementations. In this chapter we explore a large variety of these implementation options with emphasis on their analytical characterization as well as their power and bandwidth performance behaviors. While the chapter attempts to cover a large body of the published literature on MSK, it is not offered to the readership as an all‐inclusive treatise on the subject but rather one that highlights the key technical contributions that are essential to a basic understanding of the modulation method as well as its associated demodulation, detection, and synchronization techniques.