Baseband implementation of fast acquisition symbol synchronizer

Symbol synchronization in less than 10 symbol times has been achieved with a miss probability of <10^-8. This fast acquisition time was achieved by using a phase rotator instead of the conventional voltage-controlled oscillator in the feedback loop. The baseband phase error correction technique is such that the quasistable lock state of conventional phase-locked loops is eliminated, thus allowing for acquisition times of less than 10 symbol times for TDMA (time-division multiaccess) applications and less than 30 symbol times for random data. Symbol rate error correction is obtained by a discriminator technique that provides for accurate tracking of the symbol rate error. The successful construction of the system in hardware operating at 100 Ms/s demonstrates the feasibility of this concept. The results are pertinent to the use of meteor-burst channels for military applications