Frame synchronization for PSAM in AWGN and Rayleigh fading channels

Pilot symbol assisted modulation (PSAM) is a promising method to compensate for fading in wireless land mobile communications. With PSAM, known pilot symbols are periodically inserted into the transmitted data symbol stream and the receiver uses these symbols to derive the amplitude and phase reference for data symbol detection One aspect of this procedure that has not yet received much attention is frame synchronization, i.e. the technique used by the receiver to locate the time position of the pilot symbols in the received symbol sequence. This paper uses a non-coherent maximum likelihood (ML) frame synchronization approach in which only the magnitude of received signal is used to obtain the time position of the pilot symbols. Computer simulation results show good performance in both AWGN and fading channels and excellent tolerance to receiver frequency offset. Moreover, this method leads to simpler analysis and is somewhat simpler to implement.