A Comparative Study of a Class of PSAM Frame Synchronizers

Pilot symbol assisted modulation (PSAM) is a method to reduce the effects of fading in mobile communications by periodically inserting known symbols in the data stream. The receiver uses the pilot symbols to estimate channel state information. In order to do this, the pilot symbols must first be located in the noisy received sequence. This paper investigates the performance of a class of PSAM frame synchronizers which have the form of a quadratic correlation filter and threshold test. Computer simulations are used to show that these synchronizers can be designed to have a robust performance over a large range of Doppler spreads and SNR, to achieve an arbitrarily high probability of correct acquisition, and to maintain low computational complexity. Key Words: PSAM, Frame Synchronization, Rayleigh quotient School of Electrical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1285 y School of Electrical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1272 1 Introd..