A Symbol Timing Estimation Method With FRI Sampling for RRC Shaped Communication Signals

This letter proposes a symbol timing estimator for root-raised cosine shaped digital communication signals under finite-rate-of-innovation sampling. By incorporating symbol period prior information into the traditional model, the number of unknown parameters is further reduced. The proposed method processes the signal via spectral truncation with the width of half the number of symbols and eliminating the effect of unknown symbols through statistical analysis. Timing estimation is finally achieved by detecting inter-symbol interference-free points. Simulations demonstrate accurate performance at both oversampling rates above and below 1.