An alternative blind feedforward symbol timing estimator using two samples per symbol

Recently, S.J. Lee proposed a blind feedforward symbol timing estimator that exhibits low computational complexity and requires only two samples per symbol (see IEEE Commun. Lett., vol.6, p.205-7, 2002). We analyze Lee's estimator rigorously by exploiting efficiently the cyclostationary statistics present in the received oversampled signal; its asymptotic (large sample) bias and mean-square error (MSE) are derived in closed-form expression. A new blind feedforward timing estimator that requires only two samples per symbol and presents the same computational complexity as Lee's estimator is proposed. It is shown that the proposed new estimator is asymptotically unbiased and exhibits smaller MSE than Lee's estimator. Computer simulations are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed new estimator with respect to Lee's estimator and existing conventional estimators.