Symbol Rate Estimation with Inverse Fourier Transforms

Abstract

A two-stage algorithm for blind symbol rate estimation is introduced, which applies to any linear modulation scheme. In the first stage, the inverse Fourier transform of the averaged power spectrum is used to extract a coarse estimate based on the evaluation of the related baseband shape. The accuracy of the result can be improved considerably if the accumulated timing error of the subsequent symbol synchronizer is assessed appropriately and fed back to the resampling unit for further refinement. The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified by simulations and compared to methods published in the open literature