An Array of Time Varying Kalman Carrier Trackers for Improved Receivers in Burst Communications

In this paper, the problem of carrier synchronization for coded signals in burst communications is addressed. Low SNR, phase jitter, and relatively large initial frequency offset are assumed. A new concept is introduced: synchronization using an array of Kalman trackers, where each tracker is associated with different initial conditions. Based on this concept, an improved joint data detection and carrier synchronization scheme for trellis coded signals is proposed. The proposed scheme uses an array of decision directed Kalman trackers, each initialized with different initial conditions and updated based on tentative decisions from the Viterbi decoder. This scheme reduces drastically the number of cycle slips and hang-ups encountered in the classical PLL and improves significantly the receiver's BER performance. The implementation complexity is relatively low and no special hardware is required.