Comparative performance analysis of Zero Forcing, Minimum Mean Square Error and Decision Feedback equalizer

The application of equalization schemes to Single Carrier (SC) modulation techniques has made them a valuable alternative to Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Equalization schemes mitigate Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) caused by multipath fading which degrades the performance of modulation schemes. In this paper we study Zero Forcing, Minimum Mean Square Error and Decision Feedback equalization schemes and compare their Bit Error rate (BER) performance with Maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) based Matched Filter Bound (MFB), also called as optimum filter. Simulations in Matlab show that BER performance of Decision Feedback Equalizer (DFE) is better than Zero Forcing Equalizer (ZFE) and Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) equalizer and is comparable to the performance of MFB with DFE having very low complexity as compared to MLSE based MFB.