Joint blind equalization and estimation of the symbol period: a contrast function approach

The blind estimation of the symbol period of an unknown linearly modulated signal is addressed. We propose an original methodology relying on the concept of blind deconvolution, which does not suffer from the drawbacks of the classical approaches relying upon the cyclostatinarity of the received signal. Under suitable technical conditions, we show that the optimization of certain cost functions leads to the identification of the symbol rate. Simulation results illustrate the excellent performance of the method.