Timing Error Detector Design and Analysis for Quasi-Orthogonal Space-Time Block Coding

Design and analysis of low complexity timing error detectors (TEDs) for quasi-orthogonal space-time block coding systems are presented. The detectors operate on data symbols and approximate decision variables, producing timing error measurement robust to channel fading. In addition to the estimator S-curve, we obtain the estimation error variance and TED SNR, with the analysis carried out under the assumptions of perfect data and channel knowledge at the receiver. Simulations are used to examine the effects of decision errors on the detector characteristics, and to evaluate the overall system performance, where the proposed TEDs are incorporated into the receiver timing loop. Receivers with perfect channel knowledge and pilot-based channel estimation are considered. Symbol error rate results show timing synchronization loss of less than 0.5 dB for a receiver with perfect channel information.