Practical frame synchronization for data with unknown distribution on AWGN channels

We study practical frame synchronization based on sequential search of sync markers: these synchronizers can be used for frames of both known or unknown lengths. First, according to the hypothesis testing theory, a new simple metric is derived for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, based on the generalized likelihood ratio test, thus without any assumption on the statistical distribution of the data symbols. An analytical performance evaluation is then given, with closed form expression for the characteristic function of the decision variable. It is shown that a remarkable gain is obtained with respect to correlation based tests.