Design of new digital blind feedforward timing recovery algorithm for linear modulations in digital communication receivers

Synchronisers are a significant part of digital communication receivers since they are used to estimate the received signal timing. Among these synchronisers, non-data-aided (NDA) or blind synchronisers are even more important due to bandwidth efficiency. In this study, a different approach is investigated to derive new feedforward NDA timing estimators based on Newton algorithm. Two novel estimators with four and two samples per symbol are presented and compared with traditional timing estimators, respectively. One of the main advantages of the second proposed estimator is the ability to control the loop gain automatically. This ability improves the convergence speed and robustness of the design. Simulation results show that the presented estimators outperform the conventional estimators over a noisy channel, especially at small excess bandwidth and low signal to noise ratio.