Feedforward symbol timing recovery technique using two samples per symbol

In this paper, a new feedforward symbol timing recovery technique using timing estimation followed by interpolation is presented for digital receivers with two samples/symbol or higher sampling rate. A few timing estimation algorithms are proposed to estimate the timing offset accurately. The basic algorithm uses only the in-phase (I) or quadrature (Q) signal for timing detection, which applies to a BPSK communication system. It is shown that the basic algorithm, when applied in quadrature modulation systems where both I and Q signals are available, can be modified slightly to yield an improved estimation precision. The mean and variance of the resulting timing estimate are analyzed and simulated, supporting a satisfactory estimation performance. It is also shown that by applying a postprocessing scheme, such as the Kalman filter, the variance can be further reduced, resulting in a smoothed timing estimate. Some of the issues concerning the implementation of the proposed technique are also addressed.