Joint Frequency and Timing Recovery for Pulse

Shaped 4-CPFSK with h = 0.25

Zhijian Yu, Minjian Zhao, Lifeng Liu
Department of Information Science & Electronic Engineering
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Prov. China, 310027
Email: yuzhijian@263.net
Zhiyong Luo
Haige Communication Co. Ltd.
Guangzhou, Guangdong Prov. China, 510655
AbstractA data-aided synchronization method for jointly
estimating the symbol timing and carrier frequency offset has
been proposed for 4-ary CPFSK modulation with h = 0.25. The
proposed algorithm is based on a special preamble and has a
feedforward structure that is suitable for digital realizations.
Simulation results indicate the timing and frequency recovery
algorithm can be employed with short preamble of 16 symbols
and is well suited for burst mode transmissions.
I. INTRODUCTION
Due to their superior bandwidth efciency and constant
envelope properties, M-ary continuous phase frequency shift
keying (M-CPFSK) signals with modulation index 1/M are
very attractive for data transmission over nonlinear chan-
nels. Demodulation in digital communication systems requires
knowledge of the symbol timing and carrier frequency offset.
Mistiming and frequency drifts arise due to propagation,
Doppler effects and mismatch between transmitter and receiver
oscillators.
Some symbol timing and frequency recovery have been
proposed in the literature [6]-[10]. In [10] carrier recovery
scheme for 4-ary CPFSK with h = 0.25 is presented, where
the CPFSK signal is shaped with a rectangle frequency pulse.
A raised cosine frequency pulse is preferred for lowering
the adjacent interfere and improving the error rate perfor-
mance [13]. In [6] a nondata-aided algorithm is proposed to
recover the symbol timing and carrier frequency offset for
MSK signals. The general case of MSK-type modulation is
discussed in [7]. However in burst mode transmissions, rapid
timing and frequency synchronization is essential as receivers
must be able to correctly synchronize on short burst of data.
Data-aided synchronization techniques are preferred for these
applications.
In this paper we propose a data-aided timing and frequency
recovery scheme for 4-ary CPFSK (4-CPFSK) with modu-
lation index h = 0.25. The pulse shaped CPFSK signal is
considered along with a raised cosine pulse.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The
signal model and some basic notations are introduced in
Section II. In Section III, the algorithm is described. Numerical
results are provided in Section IV. Section V contains our
conclusions are.
II. SIGNAL MODEL
The complex envelope of an M-CPFSK signal may be
written as
s(t) = e
j(t;
) (1)
where
(t; ) = 2h
+

k=

k
q(t kT) (2)
is the information bearing phase. In the above equation, h is
the modulation index, T is the symbol interval, q(t) is the
phase pulse, and = {
k
} are independent data symbols
taking on the values in the set R = {1, 3, , (M1)}.
The phase pulse q(t) is related to the frequency pulse h(t) by
the relation
q(t) =
_
t

h()d. (3)
The pulse h(t) is time limited to the interval (0, LT) and is
normalized so that
q(LT) = 1/2. (4)
A raised cosine (LRC) frequency pulse with
h(t) =
_
1
2LT
_
1 cos
_
2
t
LT
_
, 0 t LT
0, otherwise.
(5)
is preferred because the error rate performance of M-ary
CPFSK signals with modulation index 1/M can be signi-
cantly improved by employing a raised cosine baseband pulse
[13].
We assume that s(t) is transmitted over an AWGN channel.
The complex envelope of the received signal is modelled as
x(t) = e
j2ft+
s(t ) + n(t) (6)
where f and represent the frequency offset and the carrier
phase, respectively, is the timing epoch, and n(t) is the
channel noise which is assumed to be white and Gaussian
with a one side spectral density N
0
=
2
n
. Then the signal-to-
noise rate (SNR) per symbol is given as SNR= E
s
/N
0
, where
E
s
represents the received signal energy per symbol.
In a digital implementation of the receiver, the waveform
x(t) is sampled at some rate T
s
= T/N, where N is the
oversampling factor. In the study, we take N large enough to
avoid aliasing.
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Denoting x
k
(i) the sample of x(t) taken at t = kT + iT
s
,
we have
x
k
(i) = e
j[(kT+iT
s
;)+2f(kT+iT
s
)+]
+ n
k
(i) (7)
with 0 i N 1. In the above equation, the index k
counts the symbol intervals while i counts the samples within
a symbol interval.
III. TIMING AND FREQUENCY ESTIMATION
In this section, we describe the synchronization algorithm
for 2RC pulse shaped 4-CPFSK modulation. This discussion
is also suitable for LRC pulse shaped 4-CPFSK signals with
any other L.
For 2RC pulse shaped 4-CPFSK modulation with h = 0.25,
(2) can be written as
(t; ) =

2
+

k=

k
q(t kT) (8)
where
k
{1, 3}.
We set the preamble to the following structure
0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 .
Then the signal in the preamble interval is periodic with a
period 4T. We can describe s(t) as
s(t) = exp
_
j

2
+

k=
q
4T
(t 4kT)
_
(9)
with
q
4T
(t) =
_

_
1
4

1
2
sin
2t
2T
, 0 < t T

1
4
+
t
2T
, T < t 2T
3
4
+
1
2
sin
2t
2T
, 2T < t 3T
9
4

t
2T
, 3T < t 4T.
(10)
To recover the symbol timing and carrier frequency offset,
consider the one-lag autocorrelation of x
4
(t)
c(t; , f) = E
_
[x(t)x

(t T)]
4
_
(11)
where E{} denotes the expectation operation. Inserting (6)
and (9) into (11) yields
c(t; , f) = E
_
exp
_
j2
+

k=
p(t 4kT)
__
e
j8fT
+ N(t) (12)
where N(t) is a noise term and
p(t) = q
4T
(t) q
4T
(t T). (13)
For the convenience, we write c(t; , f) as
c(t; , f) = c(t )e
j8fT
+ N(t) (14)
with
c(t) = E
_
exp
_
j2
+

k=
p(t 4kT)
__
. (15)
2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
Normalized time, t/T
c
(
t
)
L=1
L=2
L=3
Fig. 1. Shapes of c(t).
Its shown from (10) that (13) can be written as
p(t) =
_

1
2
+
t
2T

1
2
sin
2t
2T
, 0 < t T

1
2
+
t
2T

1
2
sin
2t
2T
, T < t 2T
3
2

t
2T
+
1
2
sin
2t
2T
, 2T < t 3T
3
2

t
2T
+
1
2
sin
2t
2T
, 3T < t 4T.
(16)
Its obvious that p(t) is also a periodic signal with a period
of 4T. The signal snapshots of (0, T], (T, 2T], (2T, 3T]
and (3T, 4T] appear with equal probability 1/4. Then the
expectation in (15) can be got
c(t)
=
1
4
exp
_
j2
_

1
2
+
t
2T

1
2
sin
2t
2T
__
+
1
4
exp
_
j2
_

1
2
+
t + T
2T

1
2
sin
2(t + T)
2T
__
+
1
4
exp
_
j2
_
3
2

t + 2T
2T
+
1
2
sin
2(t + 2T)
2T
__
+
1
4
exp
_
j2
_
3
2

t + 3T
2T
+
1
2
sin
2(t + 3T)
2T
__
=
1
4
exp
_
j
t
T
__
exp
_
j sin
2t
2T
_
+ exp
_
j sin
2t
2T
__

1
4
exp
_
j
t
T
__
exp
_
j sin
2t
2T
_
exp
_
j sin
2t
2T
__
=
j
2
sin
_
sin
2t
2T
__
exp
_
j
t
T
_
exp
_
j
t
T
__
= sin
_
sin
t
T
_
sin
_
t
T
_
. (17)
The line with a legend L = 2 in Fig. 1 illustrates the shape
of c(t). Its shown that c(t) is periodic with a period of T.
Substituting (17) into (14) yields
c(t; , f) = sin
_
sin
(t )
T
_
sin
_
(t )
T
_
e
j8fT
+ N(t). (18)
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Its clear that c(t; , f) provides information about the
parameter and f. Assuming for simplicity that the noise
term is negligible, we get
(t) = sin
_
sin
(t )
T
_
sin
_
(t )
T
_
e
j8fT
. (19)
|(t)| is even with = 0 and the location of the maximum
of |(t)| is
T
2
. Let us denote by (i) the samples of (t)
taken at the time t = iT/N. Then from the above equation
we have
(i) = sin
_
sin
_

_
i
N


T
___
sin
_

_
i
N


T
__
e
j8fT
. (20)
For |(i)|, taking the Fourier transform and rearranging yields
=
T
2
arg
_
N1

i=0
|(i)| e
j2i/N
_
. (21)
gives an estimation of the location of the maximum of |(t)|.
As is explained above, the location of the maximum of |(t)|
is
T
2
. Then the estimation of is given as
= +
T
2
. (22)
and 0 < T.
Let i
max
denote the index of the maximum of |(i)|, which
can be taken as the round of . Then the estimation of
frequency offset is given as

fT =
arg{(i
max
)}
8
. (23)
In a digital implementation the computation of the expecta-
tion is performed by an averaging lter of length L
0
over the
sequence of samples [x
k
(i)x

k1
(i)]
4
in the preamble interval
where i is xed. Then

(i) is given by

(i) =
1
L
0
L
0
1

k=0
_
x
k
(i)x

k1
(i)

4
(24)
where 0 i N 1 and L
0
should be an integer multiple
of 4 because of the preamble structure.
c(t) for other L can be derived as the discussion above. Fig.
1 shows the shape of c(t) for other L such as L =1 and 3.
IV. NUMERICAL RESULTS
In this section, we provide some numerical results about the
performance of the timing and frequency recovery algorithm
on the AWGN channel. We assume the receiver lter band-
width be large enough not to distort the signal components.
The oversampling factor has been set to 8 and the averaging
lter length L
0
to 16, 32, 64 and 128.
Fig. 2 illustrates the average frequency estimations
E{

fT} as function of fT for E
s
/N
0
=10dB. The perfect
timing is assumed at the receiver. From (23), the frequency
offset estimation

fT range is (
1
8
,
1
8
] for < arg{} .
0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

f
r
e
q
e
u
n
c
y

e
s
t
im
a
t
io
n
s
Normalized freqency, fT
ideal
L
0
=128
L
0
=16
Fig. 2. Average frequency estimations for 2RC pulse shaped 4-CPFSK
(SNR=10dB).
5 10 15 20 25
10
7
10
6
10
5
10
4
10
3
10
2
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

M
S
E
Es/No(dB)
L
0
=128
L
0
=64
L
0
=32
L
0
=16
Fig. 3. Frequency MSE for 2RC pulse shaped 4-CPFSK (fT = 0.05).
If the normalized frequency offset fT is out of the range
(
1
8
,
1
8
], the average frequency estimation will be
E{

fT} = fT +
k
4
(25)
where k is chosen to satisfy
1
8
< fT +
k
8

1
8
. Then the
maximum unbiased estimation range is |fT| <
1
8
. Fig. 2
appears that the estimations are unbiased over range |fT| <
0.07 for L
0
= 16 and |fT| < 0.1 for L
0
= 128. The
unbiased estimation range gets narrower as L
0
decreases.
Fig. 3 shows the normalized frequency mean square error
(MSE), E{(

f f)T]
2
}, versus E
s
/N
0
for the averaging
lter length L
0
=16, 32, 64 and 128. The frequency offset
fT = 0.05 and perfect timing is assumed.
Fig. 4 and 5 illustrate the normalized timing MSE, E{(
)/T]
2
}, as a function of E
s
/N
0
. Fig. 4 illustrates the timing
performance with different averaging lter length L
0
. We
assume the carrier frequency offset fT = 0. Simulation
results show the performance increases with the averaging
lter length L
0
.
Fig. 5 shows the timing MSE for the frequency offset
fT=0, 0.05 and the averaging lter length L
0
=16, 128. It
is seen the timing algorithm is robust to the carrier frequency
offset.
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5 10 15 20 25
10
4
10
3
10
2
10
1
T
im
in
g

M
S
E
Es/No(dB)
L
0
=128
L
0
=64
L
0
=32
L
0
=16
Fig. 4. Timing MSE for 2RC pulse shaped 4-CPFSK (fT = 0).
5 10 15 20 25
10
4
10
3
10
2
10
1
T
im
in
g

M
S
E
Es/No(dB)
L
0
=128, fT=0
L
0
=128, fT=0.05
L
0
=16, fT=0
L
0
=16, fT=0.05
Fig. 5. Timing MSE for 2RC pulse shaped 4-CPFSK.
In summary, the results show the synchronization algorithm
with L
0
= 16 is suited for burst mode transmissions where
rapid synchronization is preferred.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper we present an all-digital algorithm for jointly
estimating the timing and carrier frequency offset in 4-ary
CPFSK modulation with h = 0.25. The pulse shaped CPFSK
signal is considered along with a raised cosine pulse. The
proposed algorithm is based on a special preamble and has
a feedforward structure that is suitable for digital implemen-
tation. Simulation results indicate the timing and frequency
recovery algorithm can be employed with short preamble
and is well suited for burst mode transmissions where rapid
synchronization is essential.
It is interesting to mention that the algorithm can be also
used to nondata-aided synchronization systems. Equation (18)
will be achieved as the discussion in [7] without the proposed
preamble structure and longer averaging lter length will be
wanted.
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0-7803-8521-7/04/$20.00 (C) 2004 IEEE
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