Carrier frequency synchronization based on pulse-pair method for 8-VSB DTV systems

Vestigial sideband (VSB) digital TV (DTV) systems do not show good performance in indoor environment or in motion, because they have difficulties in carrier recovery. In this paper, a pulse-pair method is proposed as a new carrier frequency recovery scheme for 8-VSB DTV systems. For estimating the desired frequency offset, the pulse-pair method uses the stochastic characteristics of the autocorrelation of the received 8-VSB pilot signal extracted by pilot extraction filters. Simulation results of the proposed scheme demonstrate that its acquisition range is ±250 kHz and the acquisition time averaged 3.8 ms in fading channels.