Development of BER Tool

Abstract

This rsearch work presents an educational software interface tool for analyzing and estimating the bit error rate (BER) of an optical communication system. Currently BER estimation tool required expensive measurement equipment such as serial data analyzer (SDA) and BER Tester. In addition to cost all this equipment is also limited to BER estimation based on standard format and is not suitable for custom analysis because of time constraint to use equipment even during offline estimation. This educational software interface tool is developed using OPTISYSTEM software and built-in MATLAB command. MATLAB GUI is used as the software tool because it’s friendly user. OPTISYSTEM is used to design the PAM two levels, four levels, and eight levels system. MATLAB is used as an interface to build the BER estimation tool for measuring the PAM multilevel modulation technique. The MATLAB GUI system for measuring BER is design using Gaussian probability errors approximation method. The designed BER estimation tool simulation, is able to plot the eye diagram, BER diagram, Q-factor value, threshold value, and the most important function is to analysis the BER value for two levels, four levels and eight levels of a PAM optical communication systems.