Blind symbol rate estimation using autocorrelation and zero crossing detection

In this paper we introduce a new and simple method to estimate the symbol rate for single carrier systems of unknown modulation. The introduced technique detects the symbol rate from a continuous range of symbol rates, i.e. it does not assume a finite set of candidate symbol rates. The method does not require any knowledge about system parameters and is therefore totally blind. The method belongs to the family of autocorrelation-based symbol rate estimators, yet, unlike many such schemes, its performance is insensitive to the value of the roll-off factor. We then propose a simple method for frequency offset compensation also based on the autocorrelation function. The proposed estimator is implemented as part of a complete DVB-C [1] receiver and is verified using simulations and results in robust performance even at low SNR and high frequency offsets.