On Maximum-Likelihood Timing Synchronization

In this paper, we address the issue of symbol timing recovery for a coded burst transmission system. As direct maximum-likelihood (ML) estimation is intractable, we resort to the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm in order to derive a receiver that iterates between data detection and synchronization. Conventional data-aided (DA) and decision-directed (DD) synchronizers can be interpreted as special cases of the proposed algorithm. The EM-based technique takes into account code properties and is especially well suited to scenarios where conventional schemes fail to provide the detector with a reliable timing estimate. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with conventional techniques through computer simulations, both in terms of mean-square estimation error (MSEE) and bit error rate (BER).