Inter symbol Interference

Inter symbol Interference

Generally, digital data is represented by electrical pulse, communication channel is always band limited. Such a channel disperses or spreads a pulse carrying digitized samples passing through it. When the channel bandwidth is greater than bandwidth of pulse, spreading of pulse is very less. But when channel bandwidth is close to signal bandwidth, i.e. if we transmit digital data which demands more bandwidth which exceeds channel bandwidth, spreading will occur and cause signal pulses to overlap. This overlapping is called InterSymbol Interference. In short it is called ISI. Similar to interference caused by othersources, ISI causes degradations of signal if left uncontrolled. This problem of ISI exists strongly in Telephone channels like coaxial cables and optical fibers.

The main objective is to study the effect of ISI, when digital data is transmitted through band limited channel and solution to overcome the degradation of waveform by properly shaping pulse

The effect of sequence of pulses transmitted through channel is shown in fig. The Spreading of pulse is greater than symbol duration, as a result adjacent pulses interfere. i.e. pulses get completely smeared, tail of smeared pulse enter into adjacent symbol intervals making it difficult to decide actual transmitted pulse. First let us have look at different formats of transmitting digital data.In base band transmission best way is to map digits or symbols into pulse waveform. This waveform is generally termed as Line codes.