Blind block timing estimation for Alamouti STBC: An adaptive cyclostationary-based approach

Abstract

Block timing synchronization, which could be data-aided or non-data-aided, is a critical part of space–time block codes (STBCs) for recovery of transmitted symbols. The data-aided schemes are not suited for some problems like bandwidth efficiency and most of the existing non-data-aided techniques rely on the received signals statistics and channel coefficients estimation increasing their complexity. In this paper, a non-data-aided cyclostationary-based approach is proposed for block timing estimation in Alamouti STBC employing frequency-shifted versions of the received signals. The method is non-statistical with low complexity and requires no knowledge of channel coefficients. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the method.

Keywords

• Alamouti space–time block code (STBC)
• Block timing
• Blind estimation algorithm
• Cyclostationarity
• Normalized least mean square (NLMS) algorithm