ASK and FSK coherent lightwave systems: a simplified approximate analysis

A simplified approximate analysis of amplitude shift keying (ASK) and frequency shift keying (FSK) coherent optical communication systems is presented. The analysis accounts for the phase noise of the transmitter and the local oscillator lasers and for the additive Gaussian noise stemming from the shot noise and thermal noise. The analysis yields a closed-form estimate of the bit error rate (BER) and allows an immediate physical insight and appreciation of the impact of the IF filter bandwidth, laser linewidth, and bit rate on the system performance. The theory also yields reasonably accurate estimates of the optimum IF bandwidths and of the sensitivity penalty stemming from the phase noise