Performance analysis of blind carrier phase estimators for general QAM constellations

Large quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellations are currently used in throughput efficient high-speed communication applications such as digital TV. For such large signal constellations, carrier-phase synchronization is a crucial problem because for efficiency reasons, the carrier acquisition must often be performed blindly, without the use of training or pilot sequences. The goal of the paper is to provide thorough performance analysis of the blind carrier phase estimators that have been proposed in the literature and to assess their relative merits.