Full constellation phase detector for carrier recovery in high-order QAM systems

A full constellation phase detector that improves carrier acquisition performance in high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is proposed. The weighting function of the phase detector is mathematically derived, and simulated phase detector characteristics are presented for 256QAM. The results of an experimental evaluation are also reported, which show that the carrier recovery loop based on the proposed phase detector has a large frequency acquisition range and low phase tracking error in high-order QAM.