Communication Performance vs. Implementation Trade-offs of Interpolation Techniques for FFT-Based Carrier Synchronization exemplified on DVB-RCS2

Carrier synchronization is a crucial part of any wireless receiver, which is required due to frequency and phase offset. In case of transmission in a Time Division Multiple Access system the carrier synchronization has to be carried out for every burst separately. The DVB-RCS2 standard specifies a large variety of reference burst types with very limited known symbols. For each of these types a thorough exploration of different synchronization algorithms is required to find a trade-off between a good communication performance at very low Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and an efficient hardware implementation. A state-of-the-art algorithm for carrier synchronization is based on the so called Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT). An inherit limitation for the precision of frequency estimation is given by the FFT point size. To counteract this limitation, the FFT point size must be increased. In this paper we extensively compare two possible interpolation techniques for FFT results in three FFT-based carrier synchronization methods. These are applied to various reference burst types specified in the DVB-RCS2 standard. The trade-offs of these combinations are identified with a special focus on hardware implementation efficiency. Furthermore, we present a flexible IP core which can process the three synchronization methods in an efficient way and analyze its implementation complexity and throughput on a Xilinx Kintex FPGA.

A Carrier Parameter Decoupling Algorithm for High Order APSK Modulation

In satellite communication, carrier parameter estimation usually uses a serial structure, and the accuracy of frequency offset estimation (FOE) will greatly affect the accuracy of phase offset estimation (POE). A new carrier synchronization mode (NCSM) can realize the decoupling of carrier FOE and POE to a certain extent, but this mode is based on multibase phase shift keying (MPSK) modulation analysis, the decoupling performance is poor when uses in amplitude phase shift keying (APSK) modulation, and the decoupling performance of NCSM has a low tolerance of frequency offset. An improved carrier parameter estimation decoupling technique is proposed to solve these problems. The simulation results show that, compared with the original method, under the premise of ensuring the accuracy of carrier parameter estimation, the proposed method is more robust to the modulation mode, the POE has stronger antioffset ability, and the normalized FOE range has been significantly enhanced.

An Efficient Carrier Synchronization Scheme for Demodulation Systems

A simple data-aided carrier synchronization scheme is proposed for variable modulation (VM) communication systems under the initial conditions of a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and normalized carrier frequency offset (CFO) symbol rate of 20%. The proposed carrier synchronization scheme is simplified into two steps; a reconfigurable L&R (RLR) algorithm and pilot-aided (PA) phase linear interpolation algorithm is applied for carrier frequency recovery (CFR) and carrier phase recovery (CPR), respectively. Furthermore, the autocorrelation values of multi-pilot blocks are superimposed to improve the accuracy of the CFR algorithm, and the algorithm formulas are decomposed and modularized to simplify the implementation complexity of the RLR algorithm. Simulation results show that the RLR algorithm can track and lock the CFO up to a 33.2% symbol rate and reduce the CFO to 0.024%. The bit error rate (BER) performance of the carrier synchronization scheme almost coincides with the theoretical curve results. Comparison of hardware complexity shows that the multiplication resource consumption can be reduced by at least 72.47%.

Subcarrier availability in OFDM systems with imperfect carrier synchronization in deep fading noisy doppler channels

In this thesis, we investigate the performance of a multi-user OFDM system under imperfect synchronization which is caused due to noise, Doppler shift and frequency selective fades in the channel. Analytical result indicates that the SNR degrades as the average power of the channel impairments such as AWGN, carrier frequency offset due to Doppler frequency and fading gain is increased.The SNR degradation leads to imperfect synchronization and hence decreases the total number of subcarriers available for allocation. Based on Monte Carlo analysis, 22% loss in the number of allocatable subcarriers is noticed under imperfect synchronization as compared to perfect synchronization. We utilize empirical modelling to characterize the available number of subcarriers as a Poisson random variable. In addition, we determine the percentage decrease in the total number of allocatable subcarriers under varying channel parameters such as AWGN, Doppler frequency and fading gain. The results indicate 19% decrease in the number of available subcarriers as average AWGN power is increased by 10dB; 44% decrease as the Doppler frequency is varied between 10Hz to 100Hz; and 56% decrease as the fading gain is varied between 0dB to -30dB. Furthermore, the evaluation of an adaptive subcarrier allocation algorithm under imperfect synchronization. Hence, radio resource allocation for multicarrier systems should consider the percentage loss in the available subcarriers under imperfcet synchronization.

Subcarrier availability in OFDM systems with imperfect carrier synchronization in deep fading noisy doppler channels

In this thesis, we investigate the performance of a multi-user OFDM system under imperfect synchronization which is caused due to noise, Doppler shift and frequency selective fades in the channel. Analytical result indicates that the SNR degrades as the average power of the channel impairments such as AWGN, carrier frequency offset due to Doppler frequency and fading gain is increased.The SNR degradation leads to imperfect synchronization and hence decreases the total number of subcarriers available for allocation. Based on Monte Carlo analysis, 22% loss in the number of allocatable subcarriers is noticed under imperfect synchronization as compared to perfect synchronization. We utilize empirical modelling to characterize the available number of subcarriers as a Poisson random variable. In addition, we determine the percentage decrease in the total number of allocatable subcarriers under varying channel parameters such as AWGN, Doppler frequency and fading gain. The results indicate 19% decrease in the number of available subcarriers as average AWGN power is increased by 10dB; 44% decrease as the Doppler frequency is varied between 10Hz to 100Hz; and 56% decrease as the fading gain is varied between 0dB to -30dB. Furthermore, the evaluation of an adaptive subcarrier allocation algorithm under imperfect synchronization. Hence, radio resource allocation for multicarrier systems should consider the percentage loss in the available subcarriers under imperfcet synchronization.