An iterative frequency estimator for feedforward frequency synchronization

A simple and accurate frequency estimator is proposed. It is applicable to receivers where feedforward frequency synchronization is used such as burst modems. The estimator has a significantly reduced threshold relative to existing phase-based algorithms and its performance is close to that of maximum likelihood estimation. In addition, the mean-squared error performance is within 0.7 dB of the Cramer-Rao bound at SNRs above threshold. Unlike other phase-based methods, the proposed algorithm's performance is uniform across the frequency range (-/spl pi/,/spl pi/).