## Relative BER performance

### Equal peak symbol energy

The bit error performance for the major binary modulation schemes, assuming equal peak symbol power, is shown here. This introduces a 3 dB degradation into the performance curves for ASK. There are many applications where the available power is peak limited, possibly by the power source itself, or by system components – for example, the RF amplifier rating. Other systems, however, are governed by average power, such as average battery drain, or average heat dissipation, and the former set of curves apply. Although not shown here, the performance of filtered ASK and PSK systems will degrade from the results given owing to the increase in peak to mean power ratio caused by the pulse overshoot at the output of a practical pulse-shaping filter. |