Optimal baud-rate estimation

This paper treats the problem of estimating the baud rate of digital communication signals with application to automatic signal recognition. We estimate the baud rate from short-duration data segments by seeking the baud period that is "most" commensurate with a set of transition measurements. A technique for generating a set of candidate baud periods is described. Next, the modified Euclidean algorithm is used to find the greatest common factor of this set. The greatest common factor is another candidate for the baud period and is appended to the set. Then a quality factor is calculated for each candidate baud period. Optimality is achieved by choosing the baud period with the maximum quality factor. The algorithm's performance is investigated by numerical simulations.