Chapter 4: Carrier & Symbol Synchronization

Overview
 Signal parameter estimation
 Likelihood function
 Carrier recovery & symbol synchronization
 Carrier phase estimation

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Signal Parameter Estimation
 Propagation delay from the transmitter is generally
unknown at the receiver
 How to synchronously sample the output of the
demodulator?
 Symbol timing must be derived or extracted from the received
signal
 Moreover, frequency offset must be estimated at the receiver
for phase-coherent detection, which results from
 Propagation delay
 Frequency drift at the local oscillator

 What are methods for carrier and symbol synchronization?

3
Signal Parameter Estimation …
 Assume the channel delays the transmitted signal and also
adds noise to it
 Thus the received signal will be
r(t)  s(t τ)  n(t) where 
s(t) Re sl (t)e j 2 π fct 
 Where  is propagation delay and sl(t) is the equivalent low pass
signal
 We can also express r(t) as

 
r(t)  Re sl (t  τ  e j   z(t) e j 2 π f c t

 Where =-2fc is the phase shift due to delay 

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Signal Parameter Estimation …
 Note that  is a function of fc and 
 I.e., we need to estimate both fc and  to know 

 The carrier signal generated at the receiver may in general

not be in synchronous with the transmitter
 Over time the two oscillators may be drifting slowly in opposite
directions
 Furthermore, the precision with which one may
synchronize in time depends on signal interval T
 Estimation error in τ must be a small fraction of T
 Usually 1% of T
 But this level of precision may not be adequate in the
estimation of  since fc is generally large and small
estimation error results in significant phase error
5
Signal Parameter Estimation …
 We have to estimate both  and  to demodulate and detect
the signal
 Express the received signal as
r(t) = s(t; , ) + n(t)
 And denote the parameter vector {,} by  such that
s(t; , ) = s(t; )
 One criterion widely used in signal parameter estimation is
the Maximum Likelihood (ML) criterion
  is treated as deterministic but unknown

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Overview
 Signal parameter estimation
 Likelihood function
 Carrier recovery and symbol synchronization
 Carrier phase estimation

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Likelihood Function
 In what follows, we view the parameters  and  unknown
but deterministic
 Hence, adopt the ML criterion in estimating them
 Also the observation interval T0 ≥ T, also called one-shot
observation, is used as a basis for continuously updating
the estimate (tracking)
 The maximization of p(r│) with respect to the signal
parameter  is equivalent to the maximization of the
likelihood function

 1 
Λ( )  exp  r(t)  s(t; ) dt
2

 N0 T0 

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Overview
 Signal parameter estimation
 Likelihood function
 Carrier recovery & symbol synchronization
 Carrier phase estimation

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Carrier Recovery & Symbol Synchronization
 Consider the binary PSK (or binary PAM) signal
demodulator and detector block diagram shown below

Carrier phase
estimate for
reference signal
generation for
correlator
 Block diagram of a binary PSK receiver
Controls the sampler
and the digital pulse
generator

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Carrier and Symbol Synchronization …
 Carrier phase estimate is used in generating the phase
reference signal g (t ) cos(2f c t   ) for the correlator


 Symbol synchronizer controls the sampler and the output

of the signal pulse generator
 If g(t) is rectangular the signal generator can be omitted

 The block diagram of an M-ary PSK demodulator is shown

in the next slide
 Two correlators (or matched filters) are used to correlate
the received signal with the two quadrature carrier signals
 Phase detector is used (compares the received signal
phases with the possible transmitted signal phases)

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Carrier and Symbol Synchronization …

Block diagram of an M -ary PSK receiver

12
Carrier and Symbol Synchronization …
 The same arrangement can be used for M-ary PAM by
introducing an automatic gain control at the front end and
making the detector an “amplitude detector”

Block diagram of an M-ary PAM receiver

13
Carrier and Symbol Synchronization …
 The block diagram of a QAM demodulator is shown below

Block diagram of a QAM receiver

Synchronization 14
Overview
 Signal parameter estimation
 Carrier phase estimation
 ML carrier phase estimation
 Phase-locked loop

15
Carrier Phase Estimation
 Two methods for carrier phase estimation are:
1. Use of pilot signal that allows the receiver to extract the
carrier frequency and phase of the received signal
 Pilot signal is unmodulated carrier component that is tracked by a
Phase Locked Loop (PLL) which is designed to be narrowband

2. Derive the carrier phase estimate directly from the

modulated signal
 Total transmitter power is used to transmit the information bearing
signal only
 This is widely used in practice and in our analysis we assume the
signal is transmitted via suppressed carrier

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Carrier Phase Estimation …
 As an illustration of the effect of phase error, consider the
demodulation of DSB/SC AM signal
s(t)  A(t) cos(2 πf c t   )

 Demodulate the signal using a carrier reference signal

c(t)  cos(2 πf c t   )

such that
1 1
c(t) s(t)  A(t) cos(    )  A(t) cos(4 πf c t     )
 

2 2
 The double frequency term is removed by the low pass filter
(integrator) such that the output is
1
y (t)  A(t) cos(    )


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Carrier Phase Estimation …
 Note that the effect of the error (   ) is to reduce the


amplitude by the factor cos(  ) and power by the square



of this factor
 Note 10o error  0.13dB and 30o  1.25 dB
 Or the phase error causes attenuation of the output signal
without causing any distortion if (   ) is a constant


 Unfortunately, the phase error may vary randomly with time

 E.g., because of variation in the propagation path
 This is undesirable

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Carrier Phase Estimation …
 The effect of phase error is much more severe in QAM and
multiphase PSK which are usually represented by
s(t)  A(t) cos(2 πf c t   )  B(t) sin(2 πf c t   )

 This is demodulated using two quadrature carriers

c c ( t )  cos( 2f c t   )


c s ( t )   sin( 2f c t   )


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Carrier Phase Estimation …
 Multiplying s(t) by cc(t) followed by low-pass filtering yields
the phase component
1 1
y I (t)  A(t)cos(   )  B(t)sin(   )
 

2 2

 And multiplying s(t) by cs(t) and low pass filtering yields the
quadrature component
1 1
yQ (t)  B(t)cos(   )  A(t) sin(    )
 

2 2
 Results:
 Power reduction by a factor of cos (   )

2

 Cross-talk interference from the in-phase and quadrature

components causing a higher degradation in performance

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Overview
 Signal parameter estimation
 Carrier phase estimation
 ML carrier phase estimation
 Phase-locked loop

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Maximum Likelihood Carrier Phase Estimation
 Assume the delay  is constant
 The likelihood function will be a function of  and not of 
 1 
Λ()  exp   r(t) s(t,)  dt
2

 N0 T0 
 1 2 
 exp   r (t)dt   r(t)s(t,) dt   s (t,)
 2 1 2 
 N0 T N N 
 0 0 T 0 0 T0 

 1st term is independent of  and 3rd term is a constant and

equal to the energy over the observation time T0
 2 
 Hence, (  )  C exp  r(t)s(t, ) dt 
 N0 T 
 0 
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Maximum Likelihood Carrier Phase Estimation …
 C is a constant independent of 
 Equivalently, we can seek the value of  that maximizes
log () such that


2
ln (  )  ΛL (  )  r(t) s(t, ) dt  lnC
N 0 T0

 The ML estimate ML is the value of  that maximizes L()



 
2 2
ΛL (  )  r(t) s(t, ) dt  lnC  r(t) s(t, ) dt
N 0 T0 N 0 T0

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Maximum Likelihood Carrier Phase Estimation …
 Example: Consider the transmission of unmodulated signal
Acos2πfct. The received signal is r(t)= Acos(2πfct+)+n(t)
 Then, the log likelihood function will be


2A
ΛL (  )  r(t) cos( 2 f c t   ) dt
N 0 T0

 Differentiating L() and equating to zero we can find the

value of  that maximizes the likelihood function
dΛL (  )
 r(t) sin(2 πf c t   ML ) dt  0; yields


d T0

 
 r(t) sin 2 πf c t dt 

 ML   tan  1  0 


  r(t) cos 2 πf c t dt
T


T 
 0 

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Carrier and Symbol Synchronization …
 
 T T r(t) cos 2 πf c t dt 
 Observe  ML   tan  r(t) sin 2 πf t dt

1

 0 
c
0

A (one-shot) ML estimate of the phase of an unmodulated carrier

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Maximum Likelihood Carrier Phase Estimation …
 Note that:  r(t) sin(2 πf c t   ML ) dt  0 implies the use of a


T0

loop to extract the estimate as illustrated below

 The loop filter is an integrator whose bandwidth is
proportional to the reciprocal of the integration interval To

A PLL for obtaining the ML estimate of the phase of an unmodulated carrier

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Overview
 Signal parameter estimation
 Carrier phase estimation
 Maximum-likelihood carrier phase estimation
 Phase-locked loop

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Phase-locked Loop
 Phase-locked loop (PLL) consists of a multiplier, a loop filter,
and a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO)
 Assume that the input to thePLL is a cos(2fct+) and the
output of the VCO sin(2πfct   )

e(t)  cos(2 πfct   ) sin(2 πfct   )



 Then
1 1
 sin(    )  sin( 4 πfct     )
 

2 2

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Phase-locked Loop …
 The loop filter is a low-pass filter with transfer function
1  τ2 s
G(s)
1  τ1s
 1 and 2 are design parameters (1 >> 2 ) that control the
bandwidth of the loop
 Output of the loop filter gives control voltage (t) for VCO
 The VCO is basically a sinusoidal signal generator with an
instantaneous phase given by

2 πfct  (t )  2 πfct  k  v( ) dτ

 t



 where K is a gain constant in rad/V

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Phase-locked Loop …
 Neglecting the double-frequency term, the PLL may be
implemented as shown below
 It is a non-linear system unless sin(   )    
 

 The linearized PLL is characterized by the closed-loop

transfer function (see pages 342-343 of the text)
1  τ2s
H(s)
1  (τ 2  1 /K) s (τ1 /K) s 2
 Where K is the gain parameter

Digital Communications – Chapter 5: Carrier and Symbol

Synchronization 30
Phase-locked Loop …
 Frequency response of the closed-loop transfer function

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Overview
 Signal parameter estimation
 Carrier phase estimation
 Maximum-likelihood carrier phase estimation
 Phase-locked loop

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Timing Recovery!
 Same procedures are used for timing recovery and is not
treated in this course!

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