TABLE OF CONTENTS DR. LEWIS E.FRANKS
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
It is a pleasure to have Dr. Lewis E.Franks as the author of this chapter. Professor Franks has had numerous original contributions in the fields of signal theory and synchronization systems. He presents an in-depth study of carrier recovery and symbol timing synchronization techniques.
Dr. K.Feher
In digital data communication, there is a hierarchy of synchronization problems to be considered. First, assuming that a carrier-type system is involved, there is the problem of carrier synchronization, which concerns the generation of a reference carrier with a phase closely matching that of the data signal. This reference carrier is used at the data receiver to perform a coherent demodulation operation, creating a baseband data signal. Next comes the problem of synchronizing a receiver clock with the baseband data-symbol sequence. This is commonly called bit synchronization, even when the symbol alphabet happens not to be binary.
Depending on the type of system under consideration, problems of word, frame, and packet synchronization will be encountered further down the hierarchy. A feature that distinguishes the latter problems from those of carrier and bit synchronization is that they are usually solved by means of special design of the message format, involving the repetitive insertion of bits or words into the data sequence solely for synchronization purposes. On the other hand, it is normally regarded as desirable that carrier and bit synchronization be...
