IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY. VOL. 39, NO.

3, AUGUST 1990

227

A Digital Approach to Clock Recovery in Generalized Minimum Shift Keying

Abshret-A new method for clock recovery to be used with generalized minimum-shift-keying modulations is presented. Attractive features of the method are that it is suited for digital implementation and that its performance is not affected by the camer phase recovery process. Clod reference is extracted by passing the sampled baseband waveform through the cascade of a nonlinearity, followed by a digital differentiator whose average output represents the error signal to be employed in a tracking loop. The performance of this scheme is analyzed by means of simulation, both in the steady state and in transient conditions. Tracking errors are compared with those attained by the well-known De Buda synchronizer and with the Cramer-Rao lower bound.

I. INTRODUCTION
ENERALIZED minimum-shift-keying (MSK) modulation has received considerable attention in the recent past due to its attractive properties such as constant envelope, bandwidth efficiency, and simplicity of receiver implementation [ 11-[3]. Receiver operation, however, requires knowledge of carrier phase and symbol timing, which, in order to avoid waste of power, must be extracted from the informationbearing waveform by means of a self-synchronizing algorithm. Global approaches, such as maximum-likelihood (ML) or maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) based joint estimation of carrier phase, symbol timing, and symbol sequence [4], [5], are of considerable theoretical interest but usually lead to mechanizations of discouraging complexity. In many practical situations, simplified or ad hoc techniques may be preferred, wherein carrier and symbol timing are reconstructed independent of one another or in a nonoptimal manner. This paper focuses on the clock recovery problem for generalized MSK. One possible solution to this problem is borrowed from linear modulations and consists in passing the in-phase (or, alternatively, the quadrature) component of the signal complex envelope through a nonlinearity such as a squaring device [6]. The output of the nonlinearity contains a clock-synchronous periodic component that can be extracted by means of a phase-locked loop (PLL) or a narrow-band filter centered on the clock frequency. A drawback of this approach is that it requires that the carrier phase be previously estimated in order to effect a coherent demodulation. Thus errors or delays in carrier-phase estimation may slow down the clock recovery process. A different approach, proposed by de Buda [7] and analyzed in [8], is to pass the intermediate frequency (IF) waveManuscript received November 21, 1989; revised March 28, 1990. The authors are with the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications, Via Diotisalvi-2, 56126 Pisa, Italy. IEEE Log Number 9036996.

form through a second-order nonlinearity to generate periodic components whose frequencies are symmetrically disposed around twice the carrier frequency and spaced by clock rate apart. The nonlinearity is followed by a couple of phaselocked loops whose outputs are properly combined and scaled in frequency to allow simultaneous recovery of carrier and clock references. It has been shown in [8] that this method permits estimation of carrier and clock with errors close to the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) [9]. Nevertheless, the method has a number of shortcomings, such as possibility of false lock of the PLLs, interdependence of noise bandwidths of carrier and clock recovery processes, etc. An additional major disadvantage of the method is that it does not easily lend itself to a digital implementation. To date, many simple numeric clock synchronizers operating at various sampling rates have been devised, essentially for linear, nonstaggered modulations. To mention just a few, a decision-directed (DD) approach, which is suited for PAMlike signals, is discussed in [lo] while [ l I] presents a nondata-aided (NDA) algorithm for BPSK/QPSK. Another approach, proposed in [12], eliminates the need for an analog VCO, and so forth. The search for new algorithms suited for nonlinear modulations appears most appealing in view of the growing demand for digitalization in all communication aspects. This paper presents a new method for clock recovery in generalized MSK that is suited for digital implementation and does not rely on previous or simultaneous acquisition of carrier phase. In view of its insensitivity to the cited phase, the algorithm is especially useful in all those situations wherein carrier recovery is not required, e.g., when differential or discriminator detection of the generalized MSK signal is used. The IF waveform is converted to baseband in a noncoherent fashion, then sampled and fed to a fourth-order nonlinearity. The output of the nonlinearity contains a clock-synchronous periodic component that can be exploited in a data-sampled closed loop to extract clock reference. This scheme was devised as a byproduct of a more general search for maximum likelihood (ML) delay estimators for MSK-modulated signals ~31. In the following, the method is analyzed both in the steady state (tracking behavior) and in transient conditions (acquisition behavior), taking the mean squared clock error as performance measure. Simulation results are provided for MSK and Gaussian-filtered MSK [14]. The effect of a frequency offset at the demodulator stage (generated, for instance, by oscillator inaccuracies or Doppler phenomena) is

OO18-9545/90/08OO-0227$01 .OO O 1990 IEEE

228

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 39, NO. 3, AUGUST 1990

also discussed. The tracking performance of the method is compared with that exhibited by the De Buda synchronizer and with the CRLB. The paper is organized as follows. The next section introduces channel and signal models. Section 111 is devoted to the description of the new synchronization algorithm. Simulation results follow in Section IV, where steady-state and transient analysis is carried out and the effect of a frequency mismatch at the demodulator stage is discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section V.
11. CHANNEL SIGNAL AND MODEL

employs a local free-running oscillator with fixed but random phase. As shown in the next section, the reason for this choice is that phase compensation is not required in the clock recovery process. 111. DESCFUPTION OF CLOCK SYNCHRONIZER

The received waveform is converted to IF and then passed through the IF filter, which is supposed to limit noise bandwidth without altering the useful signal component. Using complex-envelope notation, the noise-corrupted waveform at the IF filter output can be written as

A . Operating Principle As mentioned in the introduction, a motivation for the present paper arose [ 131 from a systematic search for ML estimators of the delay parameter 7 .It was observed that certain nonlinear combinations of delayed versions of the demodulator output contain periodic components that can be exploited for clock reference extraction. An examination of the various combinations led to the choice of the following fourth-order nonlinear transformation:

q t ) = j 2 ( t ) z*2(r - T )

(6)

z ( t ) = Re { i ( t ) e j ( 2 r r f a r + S 1 )

(1)

where fo and 0 denote carrier frequency and phase, respectively, and i ( t ) is given by
i ( t ) = s(t)

+q t ) .

(2)

In (2), f i ( t ) nc(t) + j n , ( t ) , where nc(t) and n s ( t ) are independent identically distributed Gaussian noise processes 33 with two-sided power spectral density No, and s ( t ) is the E{i;(t))= useful signal component, which is assumed to be a continuousI=-% phase modulated (CPM) signal. Next,

where the asterisk denotes complex conjugate. From (6), it is seen that Z ( t ) is not affected by a fixed or slowly varying carrier-phase error at the demodulator output, thus permitting the clock recovery process to be carrier-phase-independent . The periodic part of q t ) can be extracted by taking the expectation of the right side of (6) over data symbols and noise. Details of the calculation can be found in Appendix I. As a result, the following real function is obtained:

COS [2Tg(t - T -

i~)]
-iT)]

s ( t )= ej$(t-7)

+8R,(T)

n
33
1=--3=

cos[ag(t

+ 8R;(T)

(7)

$ ( t ) A 2 ~ xha i q ( t -iT).
I

(3)

where R , ( T ) denotes the autocorrelation function of n c ( t )and ns(t), and g(t) is defined as

In (3), 7 is the channel delay to be estimated by the clock synchronizer, h denotes the modulation index, ai is the ith data symbol drawn from the alphabet 1, 4 ~ 3 ,... ,*(M- l), T i s the symbol spacing, and q ( t ) is the so-called phase response of the CPM modulator, which is constrained as follows:

s(t)4 q ( t )- 4 ( t - T).

(8)

t--s

lim q ( t ) = 0,

I+%

lim q ( t ) = 1/2.

In the following, attention will be focused on a special subset of CPM signals; namely, those commonly referred to as generalized MSK signals, wherein M = 2, h = 1/2, and the frequency pulse is a filtered version of the MSK rectangular pulse of length T and amplitude 1/2T. For instance, in the Gaussian MSK modulation [ 141, the filter to be used has frequency response

It is noted that the term R,(T) in (7) is normally very small, as a consequence of the assumption that the IF bandwidth is large enough to let the useful signal pass undistorted. Therefore only the first term at the right side of (7) need be retained. is From (7) it is seen that the expectation E{Z.(t)} a periodic function of time with period T. In the special case of MSK, the following closed-form expression of E {. t ) } can be obtained Z( (see Appendix 11):

n
Ds

~ 0 ~ [ 2 n g-iT)] (t

2
\
I

;=-m

The preceding considerations suggest that the real part of the sampled derivative of ? ( t )be used as the error signal in a digital tracking loop wherein the value of T is estimated in a recursive fashion, according to the iteration formula

where U and PT denote frequency and 3-dB bandwidth, respectively, both normalized to symbol rate. After IF filtering, the signal is fed to a synchronous demodulator that operates in a noncoherent fashion; that is, it

where the dot indicates derivative and

fk

Ek = Tk

-T

estimated clock delay at step k step size, clock estimation error at step k.

DANDREA et al.: DIGITAL APPROACH TO CLOCK RECOVERY

229 quence finally drives a number-controlled oscillator (NCO) of gain y , which modifies the sampling phase accordingly. The loop S-curve can be determined by fixing the sampling error E and calculating the expected value of the error sequence. Fig. 2 shows the S-curves pertaining to MSK and Gaussian MSK (PT = 0.3) modulations, respectively. To point out the deterioration introduced by numeric differentiation, also shown in the figure is the S-curve relative to MSK with ideal differentiator. The slope of the S-curve at the stable lock point (i.e., the positive-slope zero crossing in Fig. 2) is an important parameter since, as far as the small-error assumption can be considered valid, it determines the equivalent noise bandwidth of the linearized loop as well as the speed of convergence of the algorithm. From inspection of Fig. 2, it can be argued that the degradation induced by numeric differentiation ought to be small in the MSK case. IV. PRESENTATION OF RESULTS

DEMODULATOR

L-

NCO

DECIMATION

Fig. 1.

Y Functional block diagram of synchronizer.

For a fixed estimation error E , the statistical expectation of Re {c(kT + E)} does not depend on k and represents the so-called S-curve of the tracking loop:

S ( E )4 E{Re {c(kT

+E ) } ~ E } .

(11)

Following (9), an exact calculation of the S-curve is possible for MSK, yielding
T 2TE S ( E )= - sin --. T T

A . Steady -State Errors

In this section, the tracking performance of the scheme depicted in Fig. l is analyzed. The tracking error (jitter) variance of the reconstructed symbol timing is assumed as performance measure. The results presented hereafter have been obtained by means of Monte Carlo simulation. The attention is focused on MSK and Gaussian MSK. In the latter case, a normalized 3-dB-bandwidth PT = 0.3 is assumed. The normalized IF filter bandwidth is chosen as BpT = 2.0, a compromise value which permits us to keep noise effect and signal distortion at reasonably low levels. The parameters allowed to vary in the simulations are the energy-per-bit-to-noise-power-density ratio Eb / N Oand the loop-normalized noise equivalent bandwidth B,T. Assuming the small-error linearized model of the loop is valid, the latter parameter can be shown [15] to be

In a digital implementation, the derivative in (10) must be carried out numerically, using a finite-difference approximation on the samples of E(t). It was found that a reasonably good solution can be obtained with as few as two samples per symbol (see next section). Performance of algorithm (10) is difficult to analyze under general conditions due to its highly nonlinear nature. Under the small-error assumption, i.e., in steady-state conditions, the term Re {c,(kT ~ k ) } at the right side of (10) can be replaced by the sum

Re {C(kT

+~k)}

&(E)

+vk

(13)

where A ( ; ) is the S-curve slope at E , the steady-state clock mean error, and T J ~represents a zero-mean disturbance term. After substitution of (13) in (lo), the loop operation can be studied using standard linear techniques. However, theoretical analysis of the loop performance is still too complex, since it involves consideration of eighth-order moments of the process Z ( t ) , the latter function being hidden in the term q k in ( 13). Therefore the clock synchronizer performance has been evaluated entirely by simulation.

B. Functional Block Diagram

Fig. 1 shows the functional block diagram of the clock synchronizer. After demodulation, the complex baseband signal is sampled at twice the clock rate at the instants t , = nT/2 +.in. As previously mentioned, this sampling rate is required to implement the derivative operation specified in (10). The sequence of samples &, & Z(t,) is fed to a nonlinear network whose output is @ n ZiZ*i-,. Then it is passed through a digital differentiator, which simply forms the difference between @, and w , - l . The subsequent step, labeled decimation, is required because clock adjustment must operate at clock (or submultiple of clock) rate. The emerging error se

7-4 B,T = (14) 4 with A denoting the S-curve slope at stable lock point. Figs. 3 and 4 show clock-jitter variance as a function of Eb/No for the proposed scheme and for the de Buda synchronizer [8]. Also shown for comparison purposes is the CRLB, as derived from [9]. Both synchronizers have normalWith MSK ized equivalent noise bandwidth B,T = 5 . modulation (Fig. 3) in the low-to-moderate range of signal-tonoise ratios, the synchronizer of Fig. 1 exhibits only a limited degradation with respect to the de Buda synchronizer, also to the CRLB. A more pronounced departure from the de Buda and CRLB curves is observed with Gaussian MSK modulation (Fig. 4). B. Transient Analysis
Another important aspect for investigation is the synchronizer performance under the large-error assumption, i.e., when the linearized model utilized in the previous section can no longer be considered valid. This situation may occur, for instance, at transmission start-up (clock acquisition) or after a cycle slip. The synchronizer behavior in the acquisition phase has been analyzed by simulation assuming different values of E b /No and different initial conditions.

230

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 39, NO. 3, AUGUST 1990

4.00

-4.00 -0.50

-0.30

-0.1 0

0.10

0.30

0.50

Normalized c l o c k e r r o r
Fig. 2 . Loop S-curve. a) MSK, ideal differentiator. b) MSK, hvo-point ditferentiator,T / 2 spacing. c) Gaussian MSK, pT two-point differentiator,T / 2 spacing.
= 0.3,

a ,
0

C
0 .I

>
L

a ,

.-

w
Y

10

20

30

40

50

Fig. 3 .

Timing jitter variance versus Eh,"",

MSK, B,T = 5 . lop7. a) Proposed algorithm. b) De Buda synchronizer. c) Cramer-Rao lower bound.

From (9) it can be seen that the proposed synchronizer may suffer from the hang-up phenomenon, which arises when the timing error lies in the close vicinity of an unstable lock point. Hang-up is evident from Fig. 5 , which shows the normalized mean squared clock error during acquisition. Initial clock erTors are 0.45T and 0.5T, respectively. The error curves are .moothed by means of a rectangular sliding window of length IOT. Both trials are carried out using Eb/No = 50 dB, B,T = 5 . lop3. In the former case (initial error 0.457), the algorithm shows a monotonic convergence towards the stable equilibrium point, while in the latter case the error exhibits minimal fluctuations around the value 0.5T for a long time before being pulled down. It is observed that in the former rial the acquisition time is on the order of the inverse of B,T, i.e.. a few hundred symbols. It is also noted that the log-error

curve evolves in an almost rectilinear fashion for most of the acquisition (Fig. 5, curve (a)), with slope approximately given by (B,T)-'. In these conditions, the system behavior can in fact be predicted to a good accuracy using a first-order linear model. Fig. 6 shows the synchronizer behavior for MSK, starting from the error 0.45T, B,T = 5 . in the cases of low (10dB) and high (50 dB) value of Eb/No. The two curves are almost superimposed in the first part of the acquisition, and ultimately diverge toward their respective steady-state values. Fig. 7 has been obtained for Gaussian MSK, using the same parameters as in Fig. 6. While the acquisition time is approximately the same as in the MSK case, fluctuations are more pronounced. This effect could easily be anticipated from observation of the tracking error curves in Figs. 3 and 4.

DANDREA et al. : DIGITAL APPROACH TO CLOCK RECOVERY

23 1

lo-

IO
10-9

1
10

20

30

40

50

Fig. 4. Timing jitter variance versus E b / N o , Gaussian MSK, f l = 0.3, B,T = 5 synchronizer. c) Cramer-Rao lower bound.

a) Proposed algorithm. b) De Buda

v L

0 -

200

400

600

800

loo0

Number of s y m b o l s
Fig. 5. Mean squared timing error versus number of symbols, MSK, E b / N o = 50 dB, B,T b) Initial error = 0.5T.
=5 .

lop3. a) Initial error = 0.45T.

C . E l c of a Frequency Oflset fet

While the proposed scheme is immune from carrier-phase errors, the presence of a frequency offset A f at the demodulator output produces the net relative rotation 27rAfl rad between the terms i ( t ) and i ( t - T) appearing in (6). Recalling ( l l ) , it is seen that the effect on the S-curve is merely a multiplication by cos 47rAfT. In these conditions, if the step size y is left unchanged, the acquisition time is multiplied approximately by the inverse of cos 47rAjT, and thus may grow over unreasonable limits. This effect is also present in other nondata-aided digital timing recovery schemes operating at baseband, such as the one proposed in [ll]. Fig. 8 shows the S-curve, obtained by simulation, pertaining to MSK with A f T = 0.1, corresponding to a carrier-phase rotation of 36

per symbol. Also shown in the figure is the S-curve relative to A f l = 0. The preceding considerations indicate that the product A f l should not exceed the value 0.1,
V. CONCLUSION

A new method for timing recovery in generalized MSK modulations has been presented. The method does not rely on carrier-phase synchronization and is suited for digital implementation, with a sampling rate that is only twice the symbol rate. A simulation analysis of the proposed scheme has been carried out for two different modulations, MSK and Gaussian MSK. The tracking performance has been analyzed and compared with that exhibited by the de Buda synchronizer and

232

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 39, NO. 3, AUGUST 1990

1-" l0 0 o> '

100

200

500

400

500

Number of symbols
Fig. 6. Mean squared timing error versus number of symbols, MSK, initial error dB. b) E /No = 10 dB. b
= 0.45T,

B,T

5.

a) Eb/No = 50

: :

lo6:
16'
10"

:
I
I

I
I

Number of symbols
Fig. 7. Mean squared timing error versus number of symbols, Gaussian MSK, pT = 0.3, initial error = 0.45T, B,T = 5 . a) Eb/No= 50 dB. b) Eb/No= 10 dB.

with the Cramer-Rao lower bound. The acquisition behavior terms leads to has also been discussed, and it has been shown that, in normal conditions, convergence times of the order of the inverse E{?(t)2 * 2 ( t - T ) } = E{?(t)i * 2 ( t - T ) } of the system equivalent noise bandwidth are to be expected. E{ii2(t)ii* 2 ( t - T ) } Finally, the effect of an uncompensated frequency offset at the +4E{i(t)S'(t - T ) } demodulator output has been considered. It has been shown that proper synchronizer operation requires the frequency offE{ii(t)ii ' ( t - T ) } . (15) set to be very small with respect to symbol rate. Recalling the properties of n c ( t ) and n s ( t ) , it can be shown that APPENDIX I E{ii2(t)ii*2(t- T ) }= 8Ri(T) (16) In this Appendix, the statistical expectation of the function E(t) is calculated. Using (2) in (6) and ignoring zero-mean E{ii(t)ii ' ( t - T ) } = 2R,(T) (17)

DANDREA et al. : DIGITAL APPROACH TO CLOCK RECOVERY

233

t
-4.00 -0.50
I
I

-0.x)

-0.10

0.10

0.30

0.50

Normalized c l o c k e r r o r
. ..

Fig. 8. Loop S-curve with frequency offset. a) MSK, A j T = 0.1. b) MSK, A j T = 0.

where R , ( T ) E { n , ( t ) n , ( t T ) } = E{n,(t)n,(t the autocorrelation function of n c ( t ) and n,(t). The terms in ( 1 5 ) involving the signal j ( t ) are now lated. Recalling ( 3 ) , one gets

T)}

is

CalCU-

APPENDIX I1 This appendix is concerned with the calculation of the first term at the right side of ( 7 ) under the assumption that the signal is MSK modulated. The phase response of the MSK

where g ( t ) q ( t ) - q(t - T ) . Assuming that the symbols ai are independent and take on the values f1 with equal probability permits us to manipulate (18) as follows:

(1/2,

t >T

Therefore the function g ( t ) defined by ( 8 ) can be expressed as t O<t<T

g(t)=

= n o s [27rhg(t - i T ) ] .
I

(19)

It is easily recognized that for nT t < ( n l)T the first term at the right side of (7) simplifies to the product of two terms

:1

-&,

T < t <2T
elsewhere

(22)

<

Following a similar line of reasoning, it is found

cos [27rg(t - i T ) ]
= cos

n
i

($ -

n7r)

cos

[4

( n - I)r] (23)

cos [47rhg(t

iT)].

(20)

Collecting results ( 1 6 ) , ( 1 7 ) , ( 1 9 ) , and (20), and recalling that h = 0.5, finally leads to

since all remaining factors in the infinite product are equal to unity. A simple manipulation shows that the right side of (23) is independent of the index n and can be written in the form

E{i;(t)}=

n
I

COS [27rg(t - i T ) ]

ncos[27rg(t - i T ) ] =
I

f8Rn(T)
I

Os

[7rg(t- iT)l + 8Ri(T)*

REFERENCES
111 J .

B. Anderson, T. Aulin, and C.-E. Sundberg, Digital Phase Mod-

ulution. New York: Plenum Press, 1986.

234

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 39, NO. 3, AUGUST 1990

121 M. K. Simon, A generalization of minimum shift keying (MSK)-type signalling based upon input data symbol pulse shaping, IEEE Trans. Commun.. vol. COM-24. pp. 845-856, Aug. 1976. 131 A. Svensson and C.-E. Sundberg, Optimum MSK-type receivers for CPM on Gaussian and Rayleigh fading channels, IEE Proc., Pt. F, vol. 131, no. 5, pp. 480-490, 1984. 141 G . Ascheid and H. Meyr, Synchronisation bei Bandbreiten-Effizienter modulation, in NTG-Fachtagung Conf. Record, Mar. 23-25, 1983, Garmisch-Partenkirchen. BRD. pp. 107-1 14. 151 R. W . D. Booth. An illustration of the MAP estimation method for deriving closed-loop phase tracking topologies: The MSK signal structure, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-28. pp. 1137-1 142, Aug. 1980. I61 L. E. Franks and J . P. Bubrousky, Statistical properties of timing jitter in a PAM timing recovery scheme. IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-22, pp. 913-920, July 1974. 171 R. de Buda, Coherent demodulation of frequency shift keying with low deviation ratio. IEEE Trans. Commun.. vol. COM-20, pp. 429-435, June 1972. 181 N. A. DAndrea, U. Mengali. and R. Reggiannini, Carrier phase and clock recovery for continuous phase modulated signals, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-35, no. 10, pp. 1095-1101, Oct. 1987. [91 M. Moeneclaey and 1. Bruyland, The joint carrier and symbol synchronizability of continuous phase modulated waveforms, in Proc. ICC 86, Toronto. Canada. paper no. 31.5. K. H. Mueller and M. Muller, Timing recovery in digital synchronous data receivers, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-14, pp. 516-530, May 1976. F. M. Gardner. A BPSKQPSK timing error detector for sampled receivers. IEEE Trans. Commun.. vol. COM-34. pp. 423-429, May 1986. M. Oerder and H. Meyr, Digital filter and square timing recovery, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-36, pp. 605-612, May 1988. N. A. DAndrea. U. Mengali, and R. Reggiannini, Symbol timing recovery in generalized minimum shift keying. tech. rep., Istituto di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Pisa (Italy). Nov. 1989 (in Italian). I141 K. Murota and K . Hirade, GMSK modulation for digital mobile radio telephony. IEEE Trans. Commun.. vol. COM-29, pp. 1044-1050. July 1981. W . C. Lindsey and M. K . Simon, Telecommunication Systems Engineering. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 1973.

Aldo N. DAndrea received the Dr. Ing. degree in electronic engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1977. From 1977 to 1981 he was a Research Fellow engaged in research on digital phase-locked loops at the Centro Studi per i Metodi e Dispositivi di Radiotrasmissione of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). Since 1978 he has been involved in the development of the Italian Air Traffic Control program (ATC). Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Communication Networks at the Istituto di Elettronica e Telecomuinicazioni, University of Pisa. His interests include the design and analysis of digital communication systems and synchronization. Umberto Mengali (M69-SM85-F90) received the Dr. Ing. Degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1961 and the Libera Docenza in Telecommunications from the Italian Education Ministry in 1971. Since 1963 he has been with the Istituto di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni of the University of Pisa where he is currently Professor of Telecommunications His research interests are in digital communication theory, with emphasis on synchronization methods and modulation techniques. Dr Mengali is a former Editor for Synchronlzation Systems and Techow COMMUNICATIONS now 11s Editor and is niques of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS for Transmission Systems Ruggero Reggiannini was born in Viareggio, Italy, on August 6, 1952. He received the Dr. Ing. degree in electronic engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1978. From 1978 to 1983 he was with USEA S.p.A., where he was engaged in the design and development of underwater acoustic systems. He is currently a Researcher at the Istituto di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni of the University of Pisa. His interests include the analysis of digital communication systems and synchronization.