Genetic Algorithm Assisted Bit Error Rate Monitoring in Communication Links

An efficient genetic algorithm (GA) assisted bit error rate (BER) monitoring in digital communication link using a sum of Gaussian approximation (SGA) to the non-Gaussian link output variate is presented. The validity of the proposed method is established by both theory and experiment in three specific scenarios viz. non-coherent amplitude-shift-keying, misaligned optical transmitter-receiver system and a single channel optical direct detection DPSK system affected by nonlinear phase noise. The SGA method is shown to achieve higher accuracy in estimating BER over the conventional Q-value method when the output statistics deviate from a Gaussian distribution.