Timing phase offset recovery based on dispersion minimization

This paper presents a blind timing phase offset recovery scheme that attempts to optimize the baud spaced equalizer output mean square error (MSE) for a realistic equalizer length that is usually shorter than the ideal length. Among the existing blind timing recovery schemes, few are designed for equalizer output MSE optimization, and none are designed for the realistic case when the equalizer is short. The proposed algorithm (that is based on a cost function that minimizes the dispersion of the received signal) attempts to minimize the MSE of a one-tap equalizer output. It also exhibits good performance for relatively short equalizers. Conditions for the unimodality of the dispersion minimization cost are investigated, and a geometric relationship to the minimum MSE (MMSE) timing offset is shown qualitatively. The detailed MSE performance of the algorithm is investigated for the representing classes of channels by comparing existing blind timing offset estimation schemes.