An alternative blind feedforward symbol timing estimator using two samples per symbol

Recently, S.J. Lee proposed a blind feedforward symbol timing estimator that exhibits low computational complexity and requires only two samples per symbol (see IEEE Commun. Lett., vol.6, p.205-7, 2002). We analyze Lee´s estimator rigorously by exploiting efficiently the cyclostationary statistics present in the received oversampled signal; its asymptotic (large sample) bias and mean-square error (MSE) are derived in closed-form expression. A new blind feedforward timing estimator that requires only two samples per symbol and presents the same computational complexity as Lee´s estimator is proposed. It is shown that the proposed new estimator is asymptotically unbiased and exhibits smaller MSE than Lee´s estimator. Computer simulations are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed new estimator with respect to Lee´s estimator and existing conventional estimators.