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Implementation of synchronization algorithms, carrier phase recovery and

symbol timing recovery, on a digital signal processor

Conference Paper · July 2009

DOI: 10.1109/ISSCS.2009.5206096

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Mustapha Benssalah Mustapha Djeddou

Ecole Militaire Polytechnique National Polytechnic School of Algiers
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 Implementation of Synchronization Algorithms,
Carrier Phase Recovery and Symbol Timing
Recovery, on a Digital Signal Processor
M. Benssalah and M. Djeddou
Communications Systems Laboratory, Military Polytechnic School, Algiers, Algeria
Email : bensmusta@gmail.com
Email : djeddou.mustapha@gmail.com
Abstract— In this paper, an implementation of synchronization
algorithms in digital communication systems such as carrier
phase recovery and symbol timing recovery is presented. For this
implementation, we use the development kit TMS320C6711 DSK
with a rapid prototype method. The implemented algorithms are
founded on estimators and detectors derived from the maximum
likelihood (ML) approach. Feedback and Feedforward structures
are considered. These algorithms operate in Non-Data-Aided
(NDA) mode or Decision Directed (DD) mode. For the problem
of symbol timing recovery synchronization, we used the Gardner,
Early Late Gate and Mueller & Muller algorithms. The obtained
implementation results are very promising.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Modern digital communication systems are complex and
require increasingly sophisticated basic functions, like mo-
dulation, demodulation, filtering, equalization, synchroniza-
tion,...etc [1]. Among the most significant functions of the
receiver, we have the synchronization. A coherent receiver for
example must use a circuit of carrier phase recovery, which
enables to acquire the frequency and the phase of emitted
carrier. Another device of synchronization is the symbol timing
recovery which allows the compensation of temporal shift of
the sampling period. The frequencies are in general very pre-
cise but we observe some fluctuations due to many factors such
as temperature variations, Doppler effect, the used technology
and phase differences caused by the transmission channel. The
fluctuations involve more or less significant drifts which causes
disturbances on the phase of the complex signal [1]. The
Separation between the transmitter and the receiver in addition
to the time propagation of the signal through the transmission
channel generates a temporal shift, which makes impossible to
know accurately the instant of symbol emission. The receiver
must thus estimate the delay τ to sample the received signal
at the optimal instants (kT + τ ), where τ ∈ [0, T ] [2].
In this paper, we are interested by the implementation of va-
rious algorithms of carrier phase recovery and symbol timing
recovery on the development kit DSP TMS320C6711 DSK by
using a rapid prototyping method. The algorithms considered
are founded on the maximum likelihood estimation, adapted to
the feedback and feedforward structures, by using Non-Data-
Aided (NDA) and Decision Directed (DD) processes.
9781-4244-3786-3/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE
II. DATA MODEL
For a linearly modulated sequence of symbols dn , the
transmitted signal can be expressed as :
n=+∞

s(t) = (ej2πfc t dn ge (t − nT )) (1)
n=−∞
where T is period duration, ge (t) is a square-root raised-cosine
(SRRC) pulse and fc is the carrier frequency.
The baseband equivalent representation of the received
signal after, the matched filter q  (−t), can be written as :
n=+∞

jϕ(t)
r(t) = e dn p(t − nT − εT ) + η(t) (2)
n=−∞
where p(t) = q(t) ∗ q  (−t), η(t) = n(t) ∗ q  (−t) and n(t)
is a complex-valued white Gaussian noise process. εT is a
time delay error between emission and reception clock to be
estimated with ε ∈ [−0.5, 0.5].
The phase ϕ(t) includes the error related to the change of
frequency as well as the error introduced by the transmission
channel, very often approximated by a linear drift :
ϕ(t) = 2πΔf t + ϕ0 , where Δf is a frequency error and ϕ0
is a phase error.
Our problem consists on the development and implementa-
tion of algorithms to deal with asynchronisms such as :
• Carrier phase algorithms which ensure that the complex
demodulator is perfectly synchronized with the modulator ;
• Symbol timing recovery algorithms for estimating the opti-
mal sampling instants.
Figure (1) shows a receiver with the two synchronization
devices.
A. Carrier phase recovery
We assume that the clock synchronization is ideal. The
received signal is sampled at the optimal instants. Thus the
sampled symbols can then be expressed as follow :
yk = r(kT + τ̂ ) = dk p(0)ejϕ(t) + nk (3)
The problem of the carrier phase synchronization can
be expressed in the following way : we seek to estimate
the parameter ϕ starting from the observations vector y =
 q(kT + tˆ) function in the following way :
Low pass Adapted
Decision
filter N
 −1
filter
1
e - jĵ  =
L(ϕ) exp( (yk dˆ∗k e−j ϕ)) (7)
- jwc
kT + tˆ σ2
e Carrier phase k=0
recovery algorithm
As in NDA case, by maximizing the expression (7) compared
Symbol timing  we obtain the expressions of the estimator and the
with ϕ,
recovery algorithm
detector DD [4] :
N
 −1
yk dˆ∗k )
Fig. 1. Synoptic diagram of digital receiver with synchronization.
ϕ̂k = arg( (8)
k=0

uDD (k) = (yk dˆ∗k e−j ϕ) (9)

{yk }k=0,...n−1 . In the absence of a priori information about the
phase distribution, the maximum a posteriori method (MAP) is B. Symbol timing recovery
equivalent to maximum likelihood (ML) method, i.e : we seek As in the case of the carrier phase recovery, we limit
to maximize probability of the parameter ϕ, noted yn−1 |ϕ] our attention to the sub-optimal techniques resulting from
[3]. The received symbols y = {y0 . . . , yn−1 } depend on maximum likelihood estimation.
parameter ϕ according to the equation (3). In this section, The likelihood function to maximize is given by [6] :
we focus on the algorithms based on the maximum likelihood 
1
estimation that can be divided into two classes according p(r|dn , τ ) = ζ exp(− 2 |r(t) − s(t, τ)|2 )dt (10)
to their structure (feedback or feedforward). In a feedback σ T0
system, a temporal error detector provides error information The only difference between the considered algorithms is the
of the parameter to estimate and correct it using a feedback way used to deal with the temporal error detector (TED), to
system. the feedback structures are composed by : temporal approximate the adapted filter derivative.
error detector (TED), a PI loop filter (Proportional Integral)
For the k th symbol, the TED of various algorithms are given
and a NCO (Numerically Controlled Oscillator), on the other
by the following expressions [1] :
hand in a feedforward system, the parameters to be corrected
• Gardner algorithm :
are estimated using a block of observed samples and the
correction is carried out on the delayed signal [3]. eG (k) = {q ∗ (kT − T /2 + τ (k − 1))
The simplified likelihood function to be maximised for N [q(kT − T + τ (k − 1)) + q(kT + τ (k))]}(11)
observed samples is expressed as :
• Early Late Gate algorithm :
N
 −1
1
L(d0 , . . . , dN −1 , ϕ)
 = exp( (yk d∗k e−j ϕ)
σ2 eELG (k) = q(kT +τk )[q(kT +T /2+τk )−q(kT −T /2+τk−1 )]
k=0
N −1
(12)
 1 • Mueller & Muller algorithm :
= exp( (yk d∗k e−j ϕ)) (4)
σ2
k=0
 − 1)q(kT + τk ) − d(k)q((k
eM M (k) = {d(k  − 1)T + τk )}
In this work, we focus on the Non-Data-Aided (NDA) and (13)
Decision Directed (DD) algorithms which delivers us from  is the hard decision of the sample q(kT ).
where : d(k)
the knowledge of the data. In both cases, only the type of The figure (2) shows the feedback system for the symbol ti-
modulation must be known by the receiver. ming recovery. For the evaluation of the synchronized samples,
1) Non-Data-Aided algorithms: The different algorithms
are obtained by the maximization of the marginal likelihood r (kTe )
adapted q (kT + t )
function. The expressions of the estimator (M-power) and filter
Interpolation

r (t )
detector are : kTe
Mk mk TED

N
 −1
1 2mπ Calculation
e(k )
M L
ϕ = arg( (yk )M ) + (5) of mk 1
M M W (n) N
k=0
h (n) z -1
uM L = ((yk ) e 
M −j ϕ
) (6) Register modulo- 1 - n (n)
Loop
filter (PI)
+
Interpolation Contrôl
2) Decision Directed Algorithms: This approach consists
on the estimate of the symbols by hard decisions on the Fig. 2. Feedback symbol timing recovery system.
received signal, then introducing them into the likelihood
we use the farrow structures [5], these samples are given by : Δf T is called normalized frequency offset. By analyzing the
I2 constellations after the phase of the carrier phase recovery,

q(kT + τ ) = q[(Mk − i)Te ]h[i + μ
k )Te ] we notice that the considered algorithm recover easily the
I1 frequences offsets, which allow the emitted symbols to recover
L
 their initial positions.
= lk ν(l)
μ (14)
l=0

By using the Farrow structures, we can directly obtain an


estimate of the derived adapted filter q (kT + τ).
l

e(k) = N ν(l)μkl−1 (15)
l=1

III. S IMULATION RESULTS

We will study the performances of the various algorithms
studied previously in a digital communication system presen-
ting a frequency offset Δf and a timing error τ as shown
in figure (3). For our simulations, the considered system uses
MPSK (or QAM) constellations. The emitted symbols then

HF Modulation
e jj (t )
MPSK SRRC +
Modulation filter
Binary
data
p /2

-
Fig. 4. Effect of a frequency offset on the transmitted data
SRRC
filter

MPSK
B. Comparison of the performances of various symbol timing
SRRC L-P

Received
Demodulation
filter filter recovery algorithms
binary Symbol timing Carrier phase
data recovery recovery p /2 In this part of simulation, we compare the performances
algorithm algorithm
SRRC L-P
filter
AWGN in term of SER versus Es/N 0 for various symbol timing
filter
r (t ) HF Demodulation recovery algorithms. For the same previously used parameters,
Fig. 3. Transmission system with carrier phase and symbol timing synchro- we consider the following algorithms : Gardner, Early-Late-
nization. Gate, Mueller & Muller and ML (Farrow Structures) in the
presence of a timing error equal to τ = 10μs.
undergo a rotation due to phase error of the of carrier and a
shift over the sampling period. This system uses also a square-
root raised-cosine filters in emission and reception, with a roll-
off=0.42. The different coefficients of the phase loop filter
are : kP = 0.09, kI = 0.0025. The data are modulated by a
carrier frequency fc generated by the local oscillator of the
transmitter. At the reception, the signal is demodulated by a
frequency fc + Δf (with Δf the shift between the two local
oscillators). In the other hand, the symbol timing loop use
Lagrange polynomial interpolation, the parameters of the loop
filter are :Pp = 1.3e−3 , Pi = 1e−4 . At the reception, we
introducing a delay τ on T. The system is built in Simulink
environment [7].
A. Effect of the frequency error on the received data
The constellations of figure (4) illustrate the effect of a
frequency error on the data transmitted for 8PSK constellations
Fig. 5. Performances comparison of various algorithms.
and a carrier phase synchronization using DD algorithm. A
frequency offset (Δf ) on the receiver generates a rotation of
the carrier phase equal to 2πΔf t radians. If T is the duration The results of the figure (6) shows that the four considered
of the symbol, the phase difference between two adjacent algorithms manage to recover the symbol rate and we notice
symbols equal to Δθ = 2πΔf T rad/symbol. The quantity that on the average the various algorithms give similar results.
 DD NDA NDA
The degradation of the performances for ML algorithm (ap- Algorithms feedback feedback feedforward
proached by the Farrow structures) is due to the approximation algorithm algorithm algorithm
error of the temporal error detector. Memory
resources IRAM 51,343 51,09375 51,90625
(K bytes)
Memory
IV. I MPLEMENTATION resources SDRAM 13,23 13,154 13,6542
(K bytes)
For the implementation of different algorithms we employ Number
a rapid prototyping method which uses the following deve- of cycle 84270,5 96016,25 384177
Execution
lopment tools : development environment of Texas Instru- Time (ms) 0,5646 0,64330 0,64349
ments the Code composer Studio (CCS) [6], the associated TABLE I
environment Simulink of Mathworks and its tools such as Performances comparison in terms of clock cycles and memory
the RTW (Run Time Workshop), Communications blockset, requirements of various carrier phase recovery algorithms.
Signal Processing blockset and The Embedded Target for the
TI TMS320C6000 DSP [7].
This method combines all these tools for the creation of Gardner M &M ELG
the executable codes, allows the users who conceive complex Algorithms algorithm algorithm algorithm
Memory
systems, to implement their applications using Simulink and resources IRAM 51,344 51,5 51,5
to concentrate on the system rather than on the programming (K bytes)
difficulties. The figure (6) shows the principle of this method. Memory
resources SDRAM 13,23 13,185 13,28
(K bytes)
Number
of cycle 84270,5 88086,25 97431,5
Execution
Matlab Tool boxes
time (ms) 0,56461 0,590175 0,65275
Data TABLE II
Probleme
Experimentation,
Code prototypage Prototypage Performances comparison in terms of clock cycles and memory
Analyze, rapide
Visualisation
Conception Génération
requirements of various symbol timing recovery algorithms.
du système Simulation de code Vers la cible
et analyse

Modelisation

Real Time Workshop

Embedded coder
Simulink block sets
Fig. 6. Various stages for the code executable generation.
The various parameters of the implemented transmission
system are as follow : QPSK modulation, a square-root
raised-cosine pulse with a roll-off=0.42 reception filter of 64
coefficients, the other parameters are defined in the preceding
sections. The results of the implementation of the various
algorithms considered previously are summarized in tables (I)
and (II).
These tables present a performance comparison in terms
of CPU cycles and memory requirements. We note that the
consumed CPU cycles are evaluated for the execution of
all blocks (functions) which includes the transmitter and the
receiver for the execution of one symbol. From this table
it shows that the real-time requirements are satisfied for all
the implemented transmission systems. The programs and the
data require a memory capacity about 13,3k bytes of SDRAM
and 51,5k bytes of IRAM. These used resources are modest
memory requirements of the DSP. This comparative study
gives an idea for the choice of synchronization algorithms for
a possible real realization.
V. C ONCLUSION
A real-time implementation of the synchronization algo-
rithms on the TI TMS320C6711 processor has been presented.
We held to develop and simulate two types of synchronization
which allow the phase carrier recovery and the symbol timing.
The obtained results show that the algorithms considered
make a significant improvement on the performances of the
communication system in terms of SER and they manage to
recover the carrier phase and the adequate sampling instants.
This implementation has modest memory requirements and the
obtained results are very satisfying.
R EFERENCES
[1] H. Meyr, M. Moeneclaey, S. A. Fechtel, Digital communication receivers :
synchronization, channel estimation, and signal processing, Wiley, 1998.
[2] K.Umerbayashi, R . Morelos-Zaragoza, Method of Non Data
Aided carrier recovery with modulation identification, IEICE
TRANS.Fundamentals. January 2003.
[3] M. Moeneclaey and G. de Jonghe, ML oriented NDA carrier synchro-
nization for general rotationally symmetric signal constellations, IEEE
Transactions on communications. 42(8) 2531-2533, agust 1994.
[4] S. Abrar, Blind Carrier Phase Recovery in Cross QAM, 2nd International
Conference on Emerging Technologies, IEEE-ICET 2006.
[5] D. Lee, E. Valles, J. Villasenor and C. Jones, Joint LDPC decoding and
timing recovery using code constraint feedback, IEEE Communications
Letters, vol 10, no3, Mar 2006.
[6] http ://www.ti.com.
[7] http ://www.Matworks.com.

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