Cycle slipping behavior of NDA feedforward carrier synchronizers for time-varying frequency-nonselective fading channels

An approximate expression is given for the cycle slip probability of a non-decision-aided (NDA) feedforward carrier synchronizer using a block window accumulator (BWA) as an averaging filter and operating on a noisy M-ary phase-shift-keying (M-PSK) modulated signal transmitted over a time-varying frequency-nonselective Rician fading channel. The accuracy of the analytical results is confirmed by computer simulations. It is shown that, in practical applications, increasing the blocklength K of the averaging filter yields a decrease of the low <E_s/N₀> cycle slip probability but an increase of the high <E_s/N ₀> cycle slip probability; therefore, for a fixed value of <E_s/N₀>, there exists an optimal value of K which minimizes the cycle slip probability