Lab:10 Investigation of Inter Symbol

Interference and Eye Diagram using

MATLAB
OBJECTIVES:
The students will be taught about inter-symbol interference and eye diagrams. The advantages of
eye diagrams and how to develop and properly asses an eye diagram.

PRE-LAB:
Inter Symbol Interference:
Due to filtering nature of the channel the transmitted pulses get smeared in the time domain and
interfere in the detection of each other. This phenomenon is termed as Inter Symbol Interference
(ISI) and is a major source of signal degradation. In presence of ISI the BER performance does
not increases with increase in SNR after a certain level. Nyquist pulse shaping and Raised
Cosine Pulse Shaping are used to mitigate the effects of ISI.

Nyquist Pulse:
Nyquist pulse shaping can be employed to ensure zero ISI if the channel behaves as an ideal filter.
If the data transmission rate is R then define

𝑊 = 𝑅/2

and

𝑝(𝑡) = 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐(2𝑊𝑡)

Where P(t) is called the Nyquist pulse.

 Nyquist Pulse with W = 500Hz
200

150

100

P(t)
50

-50
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
Time -3
x 10

Figure-1: Nyquist Pulse

Eye Diagram:
If the combined effect of channel noise and filtering (ISI) is to be analyzed then eye-diagrams
proves to be a useful tool. Eye diagram is a synchronized display of received signals where
signals are plotted/displayed on top of each other in a particular signaling interval.

Figure-2: Eye Diagram

1. The width of the eye opening defines time in which the signal can be sampled without error
from
ISI.

2. The rate of closure of the eye defines the sensitivity to the timing errors.

3. The height of the eye opening at a specified sampling time defines the noise margin.
In-lab task:
Task 01:
1. Define a symbol time Tb and sample time Ts and define a rectangular pulse. Define a channel
filter with cut off frequency equal to 1/2Tb.

2. Pass the pulse through the filter, pass the output through a matched filter and plot the output.

3. Assume SNR=0db, define a random data of 100 bits, for each bit define a pulse using polar NRZ
signaling scheme. Pass each pulse through the channel and matched filter, add noise and plot the
result on top of each other. This would result in an eye diagram.

4. Figure out noise margin, sensitivity to timing error and the ISI error free interval.

5. Repeat the experiment for different values of SNR.

Matlab code and results:

Code:

clear all
close all
data=randi([0 1],1,100);
plot(data)
legend('Random signal')
Tb=0.001;
f=1/Tb;
fs=10*f;
sample_time=fs/f;
Wn=Tb/2;
n=20;
t=0:0.00001:Tb;
pulse=ones(1,sample_time); x = [];
for i = 1:length(data)
if data(i) == 1
x=[x pulse];
else
x=[x -1*pulse];
end
end
figure(); plot(x)
legend('Pulse signal')
start=1;
endpoint=length(pulse);
figure();
for i=1:length(data) temp=x(start:endpoint); start=endpoint+1;
endpoint=endpoint+length(pulse); i=i+length(pulse);
h= fir1(n,Wn); channel=conv(temp,h); trans_signal = awgn(channel,5);
match_out=conv(pulse,trans_signal);
plot(match_out)
hold on
end
grid on;
Result:
The below figure represents the required eye diagram for analyzing the combination of noise
channel and interfacial interference.

POST LAB
Repeat the experiment by using raised cosine filter, with roll of factor r=0, 0.5, 1 and explain
the results.

For r=0:
For r=0.5:

Conclusion:
In this lab, we learned about the effect of channel noise and filtering .The number of samples per
bit is large enough. If samples per bit is large enough, then at the center of the eye, the voltage
samples associated with transmission of one bit are clearly above the digitization threshold and
the voltage samples associated with the transmission of a ’0’ bit are clearly below. In addition,
the eye must be open enough that small amounts of noise will not lead to errors in converting bit
detection samples to bits. As will become clear later, it is impossible to guarantee that noise will
never cause errors, but we can reduce the likelyhood of error. The value of the digitization
threshold has been set correctly. The digitization threshold should be set to the voltage value that
evenly divides the upper and lower halves of the eye.