Considerations on error probability in correlated symbol systems

An approach to evaluate the error probability in conventional PAM digital data transmission systems with correlated symbols in the presence of intersymbol interference and additive noise is formulated in general and it is applied to the Gram-Charlier series expansion method. It is shown that the technique of conditioning few symbols before and/or after the symbol to be detected increases substantially the range of signal-to-noise ratios with an acceptable increase of numerical work. This technique also improves existing bounds on error probability, as e.g., Glave's bound.