A fully digital noncoherent and coherent GMSK receiver architecture with joint symbol timing error and frequency offset estimation

We propose a fully digital noncoherent and coherent Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK) receiver architecture with joint frequency offset compensation and symbol timing recovery. Carrier phase offset can be estimated if the coherent demodulation mode is adopted. The converted base-band complex signal is first frequency discriminated and then passed through a digital filter which performs a fast Fourier transform (FFT). The frequency offset can be estimated from the DC component of the FFT, and the symbol timing error can be estimated from the phase angle of the FFT at a specified frequency which is equal to an integral multiple of half the bit rate. These two estimated parameters are then used for frequency offset compensation and symbol timing recovery during a preamble period. Coarse carrier phase can be estimated by averaging sampled in-phase and quadrature-phase signals and finding its phase angle within the preamble period after carrier frequency offset is estimated and compensated. The bit error rate (BER) performance of this GMSK receiver architecture is assessed for an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel by computer simulation.