Optimal blind carrier recovery for MPSK burst transmissions

This paper introduces and analyzes the asymptotic (large sample) performance of a family of blind feedforward nonlinear least-squares (NLS) estimators for joint estimation of carrier phase, frequency offset, and Doppler rate for burst-mode phase-shift keying transmissions. An optimal or "matched" nonlinear estimator that exhibits the smallest asymptotic variance within the family of envisaged blind NLS estimators is developed. The asymptotic variance of these estimators is established in closed-form expression and shown to approach the Cramèr-Rao lower bound of an unmodulated carrier at medium and high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). Monomial nonlinear estimators that do not depend on the SNR are also introduced and shown to perform similarly to the SNR-dependent matched nonlinear estimator. Computer simulations are presented to corroborate the theoretical performance analysis.