ADDITIVE NOISE EFFECT IN DIGITAL PHASE DETECTION

The characteristic polynomials associated with the algorithms used in digital phase detection are used to investigate the effects of additiv e noise on phase measurements. First, it is shown that a loss factor e ta can be associated with any algorithm. This parameter describes the influence of the algorithm on the global signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Second, the Variance of the phase error is shown to depend mainly on t he global SNR. The amplitude of a modulation of this variance at twice the signal frequency depends on a single parameter beta. The material presented here extends previously published results, and as many as 1 9 algorithms are analyzed. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America