Clock and frequency synchronization techniques in software-defined radios

Proliferation of high-speed, low-cost microelectronic devices have led to the development of modern communication systems. With the evolution of digital communication systems a variety of different standards have emerged. This development has resulted in a demand for communication platforms which are capable to accommodate multiple standards. Software defined radios (SDR) have received significant attention in recent years due to their ability to accommodating multiple standards. The U.S. military's next-generation radio system is to be based on SDR systems. Furthermore, because of compatibility, SDR will have numerous applications in industrial and commercial domains. As a result, design and digital implementation of communications algorithms, which are suitable for SDR platforms, have become of paramount importance. It is well-known that time and frequency synchronization are pre-requisite for successful communications through digital communications channels. In this dissertation, we study clock and frequency synchronization techniques for SDR communication. In particular, we study the problem of clock and frequency synchronization for single carrier and multi-carrier systems. As most of the recent wireless standards are based on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), we mainly concentrate on OFDM and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.