Optimal linear receiver for frame synchronization in TDMA systems

The most common technique for frame synchronization in TDMA systems is to precede the data burst by a unique word and detect it with a correlation receiver. However, the correlation receiver is not optimal because it does not take into account the known periodic 1-0 bit pattern for symbol timing synchronization preceding the unique word. In this paper we derive the optimal linear receiver for frame synchronization in an additive white Gaussian noise environment. A nominal change in the correlation receiver coefficients is required to implement the new receiver, leaving the receiver structure unchanged. The new receiver outperforms the correlation receiver by a signal to noise ratio of 1.5, 2.4, 3.07 and 0.6 dB for some of the unique words used in practise