Clock Synchronization by Phase Difference in Timing Estimation

Abstract

Synchronization has been an important task in communication. Many signal processing algorithms focus on the issues of carrier estimation, phase estimation and timing estimation. In this paper, we focus on the issue of timing synchronization. The basic timing synchronization problems involving a time shift and many related research results have been reported. This time shift operation is based on the assumption that the clocks on both sides of communication are synchronous. In such a condition, timing estimation is just a problem of offset estimation. If the two clocks are not synchronized, the symbol periods measured in the two sides will be different. Uniform sampling rate in the receiver will not be able to probe the optimum point for decision. Here, we propose a simple procedure to estimate the symbol period in the transmitter side such that the incommensurate of the clock rate can be compensated.