Synchronization in M-PSK Modems

In many applications, it is economical for a single modem to receive multiple modulation formats. In particular, the use of BPSK and QPSK has become a defacto standard in many military and NASA systems. However, there is significant interest in employing 8PSK and 16PSK modulation in these same systems today in order to conserve bandwidth. This paper addresses a technique for achieving carrier synchronization for all four of these PSK schemes in a single modem. This is accomplished by using quadrature channel carrier recovery processing and a version of the MAP phase detector algorithm. A model for the simulation of this tracking process is derived and results are presented to confirm its functionality