Effect of a differentiator in partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) detection schemes for optical recording

In this paper, we have investigated the effect of differentiators on the performance of partial response maximum likelihood detection for optical recording under various noise conditions. Computer simulations and experiments with real signals have been conducted to compare the performance of Direct PRML and Differential PRML. It is seen that Direct PRML outperforms Differential PRML in electronic noise dominated system, while Differential PRML has better performance in media noise dominated system.