Frame Synchronization of Coded Modulations in Time-Varying Channels via Per-Survivor Processing

In this letter, an optimum frame synchronizer is proposed for coded modulations in channels with uncertainties. Coded modulations include various frame synchronization scenarios, e.g., convolutionally coded transmissions and nonlinear modulations with memory. Frame synchronization is proposed as a maximum a posteriori probability estimation implemented using trellis path search for Markov chain decoding. In addition, time-varying uncertainties such as frequency offset and phase noise are jointly estimated via per-survivor processing as frame synchronization proceeds. The proposed frame synchronizer exploits the coding gain of coded modulations to achieve better performance than conventional frame synchronizers. We show that the resulting frame synchronizer consists of a correlation term and two data correction terms. Numerical results show that the proposed frame synchronizer is robust to uncertainties at the receiver and it exhibits improved performance.