Software-Radio Architecture for Preambleless Acquisition of Frame, Carrier and Timing in MF-TDMA Modems

Within the framework of an ESA project, a multi-frequency TDMA modem for IP-optimized communications over satellite has been designed. In order to be fully open and flexible for future extensions with respect to different data rates, modulation schemes, baseband shapes and synchronization algorithms, the modem is implemented on an FPGA-PCI platform. In this context, a preambleless solution for initial acquisition of frame, carrier and timing has been investigated, which increases the efficiency of the system with respect to small data packets, in particular