An edge detection technique for fine acquisition in frequency hopping radios

The author describes a technique for achieving fine acquisition in frequency hopping radios based on the detection of the onset of energy in each hop. By estimating the start of each hop and combining these estimates from many hops, it is shown to be possible to obtain accurate hop time synchronization. The advantage of this technique is that it is inherently immune to the effects of follower jammers. Performance predictions of the proposed scheme against both thermal noise and partial band tone jamming is presented based on computer simulation results. These predictions show that edge-detection can provide acceptable timing accuracy for push-to-talk frequency hopping radios in AWGN and partial band tone jamming