EQUALIZATION IN DIGITAL

TELECOMMUNICATION
EQUALIZATION IN DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

• Equalization in digital communications refers to any signal

processing or filtering technique that is designed to eliminate or
reduce inter symbol interference (ISI). Bye using equalizer devices.

 Equalizer is the device used/attempt to reverse the distortion

incurred by the signal transmitted through the channel. It is the
device that perform equalization.
Its purpose is to reduce inter symbol interference to allow recovery of
the transmit symbols and this is done at the receiver
Block Diagram of communication system with equalizer at the
receiver
 Inter symbol interference
• ⮚ In telecommunication, inter symbol interference (ISI) is a form of
distortion of a signal in which one symbol interferes with subsequent
symbols.

• ⮚ This is an unwanted phenomenon as the previous symbols have

similar effect as noise, thus making the communication less reliable.
The spreading of the pulse beyond its allotted time interval causes it to
interfere with neighboring pulses.
⮚ ISI is usually causes by multipath propagation or the inherent linear
or non-linear frequency response of a communication channel causing
successive symbols to "blur" together.

⮚ Often times, providing more Eb/N0 will not mitigate the degradation
due to intersymbol interference thus why we need equalization at the
receiver to reduce the effect of inter symbol interference.
 Types of Equalization.

Equalization is partition into two broad categories:

1. Maximum-Likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE).

2. Equalization with a filter.

 1. Maximum-Likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE ).

⮚ Entails making measurements and then providing a means for

adjusting the receiver to the transmission environment.

⮚ The goal of such adjustment is to enable the detector to make good

estimates from the demodulated distorted pulse sequence. With an
MLSE receiver, the distorted samples are not reshaped or directly
compensated in any way;
instead, the mitigation technique for the MSLE receiver is to adjust
itself in such way that it can better deal with the distorted samples.
⮚ Example of this method is Viterbi equalization,

Viterb equalization
 To reduce the effect of ISI, Virtebi equalization algorithm is used to
estimate the maximum-likelihood receiving sequence. The simulation
results show that the VE algorithm can be used to reduce ISI by
selecting the minimum error path.
 Thus vertibe equalization can be used in some of application
including:
1. Long distance communication systems.
2.High-speed underwater laser communication
systems.
 2: Equalization with filters
⮚ Uses filters to compensate the distorted pulses. In this second category,
the detectors presented with a sequence of demodulated samples that the
equalizer has modified or cleaned up from the effects of ISI. Equalizing
with filters, the more popular approach and the one described in this
section. Lends itself to further partitioning

⮚ The Equalization with filter can be described as to whether

1. Linear devices
2. Non Linear device.
 Linear device
• Are devices that contain only feedforward elements transversal
equalizer.
 Non-Linear device
Are devices that contain both feedforward and feedback element. A
decision feedback equalizer (DFE) is a nonlinear equalizer that uses
previous detector decisions to eliminate the ISI on pulses that are currently
being demodulated.

Figure: Decision Feedback Equalizer (Non -linear device)

⮚ The ISI being removed was caused by the tails of previous pulses; in effect, the
distortion on a current pulse that was caused by previous pulses is subtracted
• 
⮚ The basic limitation of a linear equalizer, is that it performs poorly on channels
having spectral null. Such channel are often encountered in mobile radio
application
• 
⮚ The advantage of a (DFE) implementation is that the feedback, which is
additionally working to remove ISI, Operates on noiseless quantized, and thus
its output it free of channel noise
 Also equalization can be classified according to automatic nature their of
operations which are:-

I. Preset or fixed
II.Adaptive

 On the channel whose frequency response and time invariant is know, the
channel characteristics can be measured and the filters tape weighs
adjusted accordingly.
 If the weigh remains fixed during transmission, the equalization is
known as fixed or adaptive equalization.

 Adaptive equalization this is another types of equalization which

track slowly time-varying channel response. It can be implemented to
perform tap-weigh adjustments either periodically or continuously.

 Periodic adjustment are accomplished by Periodically adjustment of

transmitting preamble or short training sequences of digital data that
is known in advance by the receiver.