Frequency estimation using the pulse-pair method in different fading environments

The pulse-pair (PP) method is an efficient technique of frequency estimation, which requires a very low number of multiplications. Therefore, it is ideally suitable for FPGA type hardware implementations, especially in high frequency communication applications, as the multiplications are relatively expensive for silicon area optimization. The optimum frequency estimation using the PP method needs a lag value equal to the two-third of the signal length. In this paper, we use a new efficient technique for evaluating the optimum PP method without resorting to phase unwrapping. Detailed discussion of the performance of the optimum PP method is provided in the paper, for various fading environments.