Effects of System Inaccuracies on the Probability of Bit Error for Pulsed Communication Systems

Digital communication systems using the narrow pulses generated by a mode-locked laser are extremely efficient in their use of average laser power. However, these narrow pulses require precise system timing and decision intervals matched to the pulse width. This paper extends previous work by Gagliardi in this area to consider the effects of pulse timing errors and pulse width mismatch on the probability of bit error for on-off keying, binary pulse position modulation, and quarternary pulse position modulation formats. The general expressions are derived, and a number of examples are plotted.