Clock Recovery Archives | Page 2 of 4

April 2, 2020 Wireless/SDR

FSK Demodulation in GNU Radio

Frequency Modulation (FM) is one of the oldest communication techniques for high fidelity transmission. Its digital counterpart, Frequency Shift Keying (FSK), also plays a crucial role in applications requiring low receiver complexity. In an FSK scheme, digital information is transmitted by changing the frequency of a carrier signal. It can also be mixed with Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) for low-power long-range communication as used in LoRa PHY. Binary FSK Binary FSK (BFSK) is the simplest form of FSK where the two bits 0 and 1 correspond to two distinct carrier frequencies $F_0$ and $F_1$ to be sent over the air.

A timing locked loop with a Gardner TED converging to the steady state value for a square-root raised cosine pulse with excess bandwidth 0.4

January 5, 2022 Wireless/SDR

Gardner Timing Error Detector: A Non-Data-Aided Version of Zero-Crossing Timing Error Detectors

Timing synchronization plays the role of the heart of a digital communication system. We have already seen how a timing locked loop, commonly known as symbol timing PLL, works where I explained the intuition behind the maximum likelihood Timing Error Detector (TED). A simplified version of maximum likelihood TED, known as Early-Late Timing Error Detector, was also covered before. Today we discuss a different timing synchronization philosophy that is based on zero-crossing principle. It is commonly known as Gardner timing recovery. Background Before we start this topic, I recommend that you read about Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) for an introduction

Spectrum of the Nyquist pulse and its symbol rate shifted version exhibit a spectral null at 0.5 symbol rate for a 0.5 timing offset

February 21, 2020 Wireless/SDR

What is a Symbol Timing Offset and How It Distorts the Rx Signal

Timing synchronization is one of the most fascinating topics in the field of digital communications. On the bright side, numerous scientists have contributed towards its body of knowledge due to its crucial role in the successful implementation of communication and storage systems. On the not-so-bright side, this knowledge has grown to an extent that it has also become the least understood and puzzling topic in the grand scheme of things. My objective in this article is to simplify the problem in a clear and intelligible manner, and also refer to some of the most widely used solutions within the explanation.

Classification of carrier frequency synchronization algorithms

March 31, 2018 Wireless/SDR

Classification of Carrier Frequency Synchronization Techniques

We have discussed before that carrier phase synchronization is done at the end of the Rx signal processing chain due to the very nature of the DSP implementation. And that almost all DSP based phase synchronization algorithms are timing-aided. Timing acquisition implies knowing the symbol boundaries in the Rx sampled waveform which is equivalent to identifying the optimal sampling instants where the eye opening is maximum and Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) from the neighbouring symbols is zero. In the case of Carrier Frequency Synchronization (CFO), this is not true. From a previous post on the effect of CFO, we know that

Average trajectory for squared eye diagrams for a binary PAM sequence of 400 symbols shaped with Raised Cosine pulse with excess bandwidths 0, 0.5 and 1

December 31, 2021 Wireless/SDR

Lock Detectors for Symbol Timing Synchronization

Similar to the carrier lock detectors, timing lock detectors can also be constructed based on some property of the modulated signal. These lock detectors operate in parallel to the timing locked loop and aid the Rx state machine in executing necessary tasks according to each scenario. The expressions for two such timing lock detectors are as follows. The output of a timing lock detector should be at its peak for the correct timing. Therefore, when the matched filter output, denoted by $z(mT_M)$ with $T_M$ being the symbol time, is at its peak, the second sample in a signal oversampled by