The Fourth Advanced International Conference on Telecommunications
Degradation of BER by Group Delay in Digital Phase Modulation
A.Azizzadeh1, L.Mohammadi1
1
Iran Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC)
azad@itrc.ac.ir , mohamady@itrc.ac.ir
Abstract
One of the most important destructive factors in
digital phase modulation is group delay variations
(GDV) over frequency. This factor causes a larger bit
error rate (BER) from expected BER at specific Eb/N0
values. Thus, the effect of group delay degradation
must be compensated. GDV is difficult to analyze
exactly for modulation purposes in practical systems,
but it is relatively simple to simulate. In this paper, we
focus on the effect of group delay on digital phase
modulation and simulate the effects of Ripple, Linear,
and Parabolic group delays on BER to identify a
suitable criterion by which the acceptable variations of
group delay can be determined before the
demodulator.
1. Introduction
Data sheets for demodulators provide expected BER
at specific Eb/N0 values. This information is valid only
for a laboratory environment where the modulator is
connected back to back with the demodulator at IF, i.e.
alterations of the signal shape that are caused by
numerous factors such as group delay, amplitude
distortion, and Doppler shift must be compensated.
Among these factors, conceptually group delay is one
of the simplest, although it is probably a more difficult
factor to be analyzed. Since transmission data in the
phase modulation resides in the phase, therefore group
delay modifies signal constellation and causes BER
degradation. This investigation focuses on the effects
associated with group delay, in order to find a criterion
by which the acceptable variations of the group delay
before the demodulator can be determined. Thus the
generated group delay in the pervious component will
be measured and equalized to the defined value.
In this paper, at first we discuss group delay
followed by discussion of its different types and effects
on digital phase modulation. Finally the simulated
results of the effects of Ripple, Linear, and Parabolic
978-0-7695-3162-5/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/AICT.2008.31
group delays on BER are given. These include
identification of a suitable criterion for calculating the
acceptable variations of the group delay before the
demodulator.
2. Group delay and its effects
Group delay response is the difference in transit
time versus frequency for signals going through a
communications channel. Ideally, group delay is
constant (straight line with no tilt) so that that all
frequencies of the transmitted carrier experience the
same time lag through the system. If not, the recovered
symbols interfere with one another causing difficulties
in distinguish different symbols and thus errors occur.
Consider a digitally modulated waveform with its
spectrum placed within a filter that just fits it. There
will be frequency components at the band edges and
where the frequency components of the modulation
envelope will be delayed relative to the mid-band
components, resulting in group delay distortion. In the
time domain, the impact can be viewed as dispersion
on an oscilloscope. The time domain waveform
spreads itself out for each symbol.
For a digital communication system, the detection
mechanism will include a matched filter, followed by
sampling of the filter output at the optimum point. The
effect of dispersion is to create inter symbol
interference (ISI). Adjacent symbols run into one
another and energy may exist at the sample instant of
one symbol that's actually energy associated with an
adjacent symbol, which contributes to symbol errors
[1].
The frequency spectrum of a digital carrier is shown
in Fig. 1(3rd from top). For convenience the symbol
rate bandwidth, also the 3 dB bandwidth is identified.
Above the transmitted carrier are plotted several types
of group delay that are used for simulation. At the top
of the figure linear and parabolic delays are indicated.
Parabolic group delay is usually associated with band-
pass filters found in communication devices. The
sinusoidal delays are often caused by impedance
mismatches in the system [2].
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 transmitted information [5]. Now suppose that s k (t ) is
required to be transmitted over the AWGN channel.
The received symbol is modified by both noise and
group delay relative to the transmitted symbol. We
consider (α , β ) as the displacement of transmitted
symbol caused by the group delay. As such the
received symbol vector rk can be written as:

rk = [rk1 rk 2 ] = [ s k1 + α + n1 s k 2 + β + n2 ] (4)

where n1 and n2 are the noise components. It can now

be concluded that the received vector rk is the
transmitted vector s k , which has been modified by
Figure 1. Several types of group delay and transmitted noise and group delay during the transmission in the
spectrum channel. Fig. 2 illustrates the displacement of the
transmitted vector through the noise and GDV.
3. Effect of group delay on digital phase
modulation
Since GDV is considered to cause signal distortion,
it can be concluded that the pulse shape for each bit is
distorted. Suppose a pulse shape g (t ) with duration
TS , is allowed to pass through the system with the
impulse response H ( f ) = exp( jΦ( f )) having
constant amplitude and non-linear phase. The output
pulse gˆ (t ) is then as follows:

+∞

∫ G( f ) e
j 2πf t
gˆ (t ) = g (t ) ∗ h(t ) = e jΦ ( f ) df (1)
−∞

where G ( f ) and H ( f ) are the Fourier transforms of

g (t ) and h(t ) , respectively. In general, the distorted
pulse gˆ (t ) consists of the original pulse and several Figure 2. Displacement of the transmitted vector through the
scattered pulses each having different amplitudes, noise and group delay variations
phases and delays with respect to the original pulse. It
may be a complex signal, and may have a value outside
The particular values of α and β depend on type
the interval [0, Ts ]. Consequently it can be concluded
of group delay, value of GDV, type of pulse shape and
that GDV cause the inter symbol interference (ISI)
disposition of transmitted symbols (or bits). By
leading to distortion in the pulse [3], [4]. In MPSK, the
M base-band signal waveforms can be written as:
calculating (α , β ) , BER degradation through GDV
can be computed. However, owing to the presence of
2π
s k ( t ) = g ( t ) e jθ , θ k =
k
(i − 1) , i = 1, 2,..., M (2) complex integral in (1) for linear and parabolic group
M delay, (α , β ) can be computed using numerical
having vector representation as follows: methods only. But for ripple group delay, (α , β ) can
be calculated analytically (for details refer to [6]).
s k = [ E g cos θ k E g sin θ k ] (3) Therefore BER degradation is obtained from
simulation. In the following, the simulated results are
where E g is the energy of the pulse shape and introduced.
θ k indicates the M possible phases that convey the

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4. Simulated results
An exact analysis of GDV for modulations in
practical systems is rather difficult while it is relatively
simple to perform simulation studies. In this paper, we
use simulations, for evaluating the amount of the
displacement of the transmitted symbol and BER
degradation, caused by each type of group delay
(Linear, Parabolic and Ripple) for BPSK and QPSK
modulation.
Fig. 3 indicates a block diagram of simulation steps.
Figure 4. Displacement of symbols by Linear group delay at
At the first stage, a zero delay was considered and a GD.SR=0.5 in a) QPSK , b) BPSK
reference Eb/N0 was determined for a BER of
approximately 10-5. Additional data was obtained with
varying group delay to determine the required added
Eb/N0 to achieve the same BER. As such, the group
delay value considered was the total variation
measured over the symbol bandwidth. We evaluated
the BER degradation in terms of a factor that was
normalized to the product of symbol rate (SR) and
group delay (GD).

Figure 5. Displacement of symbols by Parabolic group delay at

GD.SR=0.5 in a) QPSK , b) BPSK

Figure 3. The block diagram of simulation

Fig. 4 through Fig. 7 illustrate the simulation results

of the amount of the displacement in BPSK and QPSK
for each type of group delay with GD.SR =0.5. Figure 6. Displacement of symbols by Ripple group delay
Fig. 8 through Fig. 11 indicate graphic (1 cycle) at GD.SR=0.5 in a) QPSK , b) BPSK
representations of the simulated results as well as
polynomial equations that are fitted to represent the
data. The input data on the X axis is normalized to the
symbol rate (SR) multiplied by the group delay (GD).
The symbol rate is in symbols/second (sym/s) and the
group delay is in seconds (s). The dependent data on
the Y axis represent BER degradation and is the added
Eb/N0 or required power to overcome the effects of
group delay as compared to the reference with no
group delay. The polynomial equations used to
produce the graphs are shown in the Table (1) where
B.D indicates BER degradation and x is GD.SR. Figure 7. Displacement of symbols by Ripple group delay
(2 cycles) at GD.SR=0.5 in a) QPSK , b) BPSK

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 Table 1. Polynomial equations fit to simulated data

Group
Modulation BER Degradation Curve
Delay

2
Linear BPSK B.D=0.1208 x +0.3537 x -0.0315

2
Linear QPSK B.D=1.0322 x +1.1846 x -0.1649

2
Parabolic BPSK B.D=0.2708 x +0.0284 x +0.0016

2
Parabolic QPSK B.D=0.0227 x +0.4471 x -0.0449
Figure 8. BER degradation through Linear group delay versus
GD.SR Ripple 2
(1 cycle)
BPSK B.D=5.5227 x +1.2265 x -0.0349

Ripple 2
(1 cycle)
QPSK B.D=12.2102 x -1.1859 x +0.088
Ripple
2
(2 BPSK B.D=1.7333 x +0.3071 x -0.0071
cycles)
Ripple
2
(2 QPSK B.D=2.6227 x -0.1182 x +0.0167
cycles)

Table (1) provides the maximum permissible x (i.e.

Figure 9. BER degradation through Parabolic group delay
versus GD.SR
Figure 10. BER degradation through Ripple group delay
(1 cycle) versus GD.SR
GD.SR) for a given level of B.D. This Table can be
used as a design aid to identify the condition under
which equalization should be considered. The value
GD.SR is dimensionless since the symbol rate has a
dimension of 1/time and group delay is measured in
second. For example, in general up to B.D=0.5 dB of
the added BER degradation is acceptable for QPSK. If
it is desired to carry a 50 Msym/s QPSK signal with
under 0.5 dB of added degradation, it can be
determined using Table (1). The Table indicates
GD.SR =1.15 for QPSK parabolic and GD.SR =0.43
for linear QPSK. Given SR, the maximum GD is
calculated as follows:
1.15/ (50 Msym/s) =23 ns Parabolic
0.43/ (50 Msym/s) =8.6 ns Linear
Therefore if the group delay of the entire channel
including uplink, transponder and receiver exceeds
either of these values, an equalizer should be used.
Thus the overall parabolic group delay must be under
23 ns and the overall linear group delay must be under
8.6 ns.

Figure 11. BER degradation through Ripple group delay
(2 cycles) versus GD.SR
5. Conclusion
In this paper the effect of GDV on BER was derived
by carrying out simulation. The results obtained from
above simulation show that degradation caused by
ripple group delay is dependent on the quantity of
ripples. Fewer ripples cause more degradation. Also

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linear group delay causes greater degradation than
parabolic group delay. Furthermore, with increasing
modulation index M, BER degradation is increased.
Ultimately, BER degradation was calculated
through GDV as a function of GD.SR. By using these
results for BPSK and QPSK with the defined symbol
rate and acceptable BER degradation, a suitable GDV
variations before demodulator can be determined.
These results can be used as a design aid to determine
if equalization should be used.
5. References
[1] R. Howald," A delay in the (fourier) proceedings ", Jul
27, 2006, http://www.commsdesign.com
354
[2] S. Back , M. Weigel,"Degradation of digital satellite
signals by group delay", Globecomm System Inc &
EFDATA Corporation, Appeared In world Broadcast
News, November 1999.
[3] X. Liu, L. Mollenauer, X. Wei ," Impact of group-delay
ripple in transmission systems including phase-
modulated formats ", IEEE Photonics Technology
Letters, VOL. 16, NO. 1, January 2004,pp. 305-307.
[4] C. Scheerer, C. Glingener, G. Fischer, M. Bohn, and W.
Rosenkranz, "System impact of ripples in grating group
delay" in Proceedings of IEEE Conference on
Transparent Optical Networks (Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers, Kielec, 1999), pp. 33-36.
[5] John G. Prokis, Digital communication. McGraw-Hill
Science Engineering, 2000
[6] A. Azizzadeh, L. Mohammadi, "Effect of group-delay
ripple on BER in digital phase modulation ",
unpublished.