Symbol timing determining device and method
20190215143 ยท 2019-07-11
Inventors
Cpc classification
H04L5/0007
ELECTRICITY
H04L27/2695
ELECTRICITY
International classification
H04L7/00
ELECTRICITY
H04W24/08
ELECTRICITY
Abstract
Disclosed is a symbol timing determining device including: a symbol timing detecting circuit detecting a reception signal to obtain a first symbol timing, and shifting the first symbol timing to obtain a second symbol timing; an estimation signal generating circuit processing the reception signal according to the first and the second symbol timings respectively, so as to obtain a first and a second channel estimation frequency-domain signals; a channel estimation impulse response signal generating circuit generating a first and a second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signals according to the first and the second channel estimation frequency-domain signals respectively; a power measuring circuit measuring the energy of the first and the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signals according to a predetermined signal region respectively; and a decision circuit selecting one of the first and the second symbol timings according to a relation of the measured energy.
Claims
1. A symbol timing determining device capable of preventing erroneous symbol timing synchronization of a communication system, the symbol timing determining device comprising: a symbol timing detecting circuit configured to detect a reception signal to obtain a first symbol timing and configured to shift the first symbol timing to obtain a second symbol timing; an estimation signal generating circuit configured to process the reception signal according to the first symbol timing to obtain a first channel estimation frequency-domain signal, and configured to process the reception signal according to the second symbol timing to obtain a second channel estimation frequency-domain signal; a channel impulse response signal generating circuit configured to generate a first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal according to the first channel estimation frequency-domain signal, and configured to generate a second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal according to the second channel estimation frequency-domain signal; a power measuring circuit configured to measure first energy of the first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal according to a first predetermined signal region of the first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal, and configured to measure second energy of the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal according to a second predetermined signal region of the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal; and a decision circuit configured to adopt one of the first symbol timing and the second symbol timing by determining whether a relation between the first energy and the second energy conforms to a predetermined relation.
2. The symbol timing determining device of claim 1, wherein a timing difference between the first symbol timing and the second symbol timing is 150 nanosecond or 200 nanosecond.
3. The symbol timing determining device of claim 1, wherein the estimation signal generating circuit is configured to process at least a part of a long training sequence of the reception signal according to the first symbol timing and a predetermined long training sequence so as to obtain the first channel estimation frequency-domain signal, and the estimation signal generating circuit is configured to process at least the part of the long training sequence of the reception signal according to the second symbol timing and the predetermined long training sequence so as to obtain the second channel estimation frequency-domain signal.
4. The symbol timing determining device of claim 1, wherein a time length of the first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal is 3.2 microsecond and a time length of the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal is 3.2 microsecond.
5. The symbol timing determining device of claim 1, wherein a range of the first predetermined signal region is equivalent to a range of the second predetermined signal region.
6. The symbol timing determining device of claim 5, wherein the first predetermined signal region is between 0.8 microsecond, that is relative to a first arriving path, and 2.4 microsecond and the second predetermined signal region is between 0.8 microsecond, that is relative to the first arriving path, and 2.4 microsecond.
7. The symbol timing determining device of claim 1, wherein when the relation conforms to the predetermined relation, each of the first predetermined signal region and the second predetermined signal region is a pure noise region; and when the relation does not conform to the predetermined relation, the first predetermined signal region is a pure noise region and the second predetermined signal region is a noise and inter-symbol interference region.
8. The symbol timing determining device of claim 1, wherein when an absolute value of a difference between the first energy and the second energy is smaller than a threshold, the decision circuit determines that the relation conforms to the predetermined relation.
9. The symbol timing determining device of claim 8, wherein when the relation conforms to the predetermined relation, the decision circuit has the symbol timing determining device adopt the second symbol timing; and when the relation does not conform to the predetermined relation, the decision circuit has the symbol timing determining device adopt the first symbol timing.
10. The symbol timing determining device of claim 1, wherein when a product of the first energy and a predetermined value is not less than the second energy, the decision circuit determines that the relation conforms to the predetermined relation.
11. The symbol timing determining device of claim 10, wherein when the relation conforms to the predetermined relation, the decision circuit has the symbol timing determining device adopt the second symbol timing; and when the relation does not conform to the predetermined relation, the decision circuit has the symbol timing determining device adopt the first symbol timing.
12. The symbol timing determining device of claim 11, wherein the predetermined value is equal to a sum of one and an energy ratio which is a ratio of inter-symbol interference energy to noise energy.
13. A symbol timing determining method capable of preventing erroneous symbol timing synchronization of a communication system, the symbol timing determining method comprising: receiving a reception signal to obtain a first symbol timing; processing the reception signal according to the first symbol timing to obtain a first channel estimation frequency-domain signal; generating a first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal according to the first channel estimation frequency-domain signal; measuring first energy of the first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal according to a first predetermined signal region of the first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal; shifting the first symbol timing to obtain a second symbol timing; processing the reception signal according to the second symbol timing to obtain a second channel estimation frequency-domain signal; generating a second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal according to the second channel estimation frequency-domain signal; measuring second energy of the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal according to a second predetermined signal region of the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal; determining whether a relation between the first energy and the second energy conforms to a predetermined relation; when the relation conforms to the predetermined relation, adopting the second symbol timing; and when the relation does not conform to the predetermined relation, adopting the first symbol timing.
14. The symbol timing determining method of claim 13, wherein a timing difference between the first symbol timing and the second symbol timing is 150 nanosecond or 200 nanosecond.
15. The symbol timing determining method of claim 13, wherein a time length of the first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal is 3.2 microsecond and a time length of the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal is 3.2 microsecond.
16. The symbol timing determining method of claim 13, wherein a range of the first predetermined signal region is equivalent to a range of the second predetermined signal region.
17. The symbol timing determining method of claim 13, wherein when the relation conforms to the predetermined relation, each of the first predetermined signal region and the second predetermined signal region is a pure noise region; and when the relation does not conform to the predetermined relation, the first predetermined signal region is a pure noise region and the second predetermined signal region is a noise and inter-symbol interference region.
18. The symbol timing determining method of claim 13, wherein when an absolute value of a difference between the first energy and the second energy is smaller than a threshold, the relation is found being in compliance with the predetermined relation.
19. The symbol timing determining method of claim 13, wherein when a product of the first energy and a predetermined value is not less than the second energy, the relation is found being in compliance with the predetermined relation.
20. The symbol timing determining method of claim 19, wherein the predetermined value is equal to a sum of one and an energy ratio which is a ratio of inter-symbol interference energy to noise energy.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
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[0019]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0020] Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique is widely used in a communication system such as an IEEE 802.11a/g/n/ac/ax system or a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system. An OFDM communication system needs highly accurate setting of carrier frequency offset and symbol timing synchronization. In order to increase the performance of the communication system, a transmitter of the communication system puts a preamble in the front of a frame so that a receiver can use the well-defined preamble to estimate the carrier frequency offset and detect the symbol timing and thereby execute calibration to the carrier frequency offset and/or the symbol timing before receiving the data payload of the frame. An instance of the format of the above-mentioned preamble is shown in
[0021] A conventional method for symbol timing synchronization carries out cross correlation calculation to a known LTS and a reception signal in the time-domain as shown in the following equation 1:
(T)=.sub.n=0.sup.L-1r(+n)s*(n)(Eq. 1)
, in which is a time variable, r(+n) is the reception signal, s*(n) is the LTS, the superscript * stands for complex conjugate, L is the length of the LTS, and n is the sampling point. When |()| is greater than a predetermined value, the is the detected symbol timing and the () is the channel impulse response (e.g.,
TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 cyclic shift of first cyclic shift of cyclic shift of cyclic shift of TC transmit second transmit third transmit fourth transmit number chain (ns) chain (ns) chain (ns) chain (ns) 1 0 2 0 200 3 0 100 200 4 0 50 100 150
[0022] For better understanding, the following description is written on the basis of a transmitter carrying out CSD transmission by two antennas. People of ordinary skill in the art can derive the modifications of the present invention in accordance with the present disclosure and the existing knowledge.
[0023]
[0024] In order to determine the symbol timing is .sub.0 or .sub.0, the present invention discloses a symbol timing determining device for this determination.
[0025] The symbol timing detecting circuit 410 is configured to detect a reception signal (e.g., a signal outputted by an analog-to-digital converter of a receiver of a communication system) according to Eq. 1 and thereby obtain a first symbol timing .sub.1. The symbol timing detecting circuit 410 is further configured to shift the first symbol timing .sub.1 to obtain a second symbol timing .sub.2, in which the shift amount of the above-mentioned shift operation is related to the CSD time shift adopted by a transmitter transmitting a signal that is received as the reception signal. In an exemplary implementation, the timing difference t.sub. (i.e., symbol timing shift) between the first symbol timing .sub.1 and the second symbol timing .sub.2 is 150 nanosecond or 200 nanosecond; more specifically, according to the aforementioned Table 1, when the number of antennas is not greater than four, the maximum difference between the CSD time shifts of different transmit chains is 150 nanosecond or 200 nanosecond, and thus it is logical to assume that the timing difference between a pseudo path caused by CSD technique and a real path is 150 nanosecond (when a transmitter uses four antenna for CSD transmission) or 200 nanosecond (when a transmitter uses two or three antennas for CSD transmission) and then set the timing difference t.sub. accordingly. Since a receiver may not ascertain the number of antennas for the transmitter carrying out CSD transmission, every possible timing difference (e.g., 150 nanosecond and 200 nanosecond) could be tried to find out the best option.
[0026] The estimation signal generating circuit 420 is configured to process the reception signal according to the first symbol timing .sub.1 to obtain a first channel estimation frequency-domain signal .sub.1, and configured to process the reception signal according to the second symbol timing .sub.2 to obtain a second channel estimation frequency-domain signal .sub.2. The signals generated by the estimation signal generating circuit 420 can be outputted to a backend circuit for the execution of some process (e.g., signal detection process and decoding process of a receiver in a communication system). In an exemplary implementation, the estimation signal generating circuit 420 is a circuit of a receiver in a communication system and operable to carry out the removal of cyclic prefix, the series-to-parallel conversion, the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and the channel estimation; more specifically, the estimation signal generating circuit 420 executes FFT to at least a part of the second LTS of the reception signal, which has gone through the series-to-parallel conversion, according to the first symbol timing .sub.1 and the second symbol timing .sub.2 obtained by the symbol timing detecting circuit 410, and thereby the estimation signal generating circuit 420 generates a first frequency-domain sequence X.sub.1 and a second frequency-domain sequence X.sub.2 as shown in the following equation 2:
X.sub.1=FFT{r(.sub.1)}
X.sub.2=FFT{r(.sub.2)}(Eq. 2)
, in which r(.sub.1) is a reception signal sequence starting at the time point .sub.1 and the length of r(.sub.1) is 3.2 microsecond, and r(.sub.2) is a reception signal sequence starting at the time point .sub.2 and the length of r(.sub.2) is 3.2 microsecond. Afterwards, the estimation signal generating circuit 420 uses a known long training frequency-domain sequence S and the Least Square algorithm to do channel estimation to the frequency-domain sequences X.sub.1 and X.sub.2 so as to obtain the first channel estimation frequency-domain signal .sub.1 and the second channel estimation frequency-domain signal .sub.2 as shown in the following equation 3:
[0027] An embodiment of the channel impulse response signal generating circuit 430 is/includes a circuit capable of executing inverse Fast Fourier Transform (iFFT). The channel impulse response signal generating circuit 430 is configured to generate a first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal .sub.1 and a second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal .sub.2 according to the first channel estimation frequency-domain signal .sub.1 and the second channel estimation frequency-domain signal .sub.2 respectively, which can be expressed as follows:
.sub.1=iFFT{.sub.1}
.sub.2=iFFT{.sub.2}(Eq. 4)
In an exemplary implementation, each of .sub.1 and .sub.2 is a channel estimation impulse response time-domain sequence whose length is 3.2 microsecond. If the aforementioned first symbol timing .sub.1 is a symbol timing of a pseudo path (e.g., the symbol timing .sub.0 in
[0028] The power measuring circuit 440 is configured to measure the energy P.sub.1 of the first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal .sub.1 according to a first predetermined signal region of .sub.1. The power measuring circuit 440 is also configured to measure the energy P.sub.2 of the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal .sub.2 according to a second predetermined signal region of .sub.2. In an exemplary implementation, the range of the first predetermined signal region is equivalent to the range of the second predetermined signal region; for instance, each of the first and the second predetermined signal regions is a region from the aforementioned t.sub.0 (e.g., 0.8 microsecond) to the aforementioned t.sub.1 (e.g., 2.4 microsecond), and the calculation of the energy P.sub.1 and the energy P.sub.2 can be expressed as follows:
[0029] In an exemplary implementation, if the aforementioned first symbol timing t.sub.1 is a symbol timing of a pseudo path (e.g., the symbol timing .sub.0 in
[0030] The decision circuit 150 is configured to determine whether a relation between the energy P.sub.1 of the first channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal and the energy P.sub.2 of the second channel estimation impulse response time-domain signal conforms to a predetermined relation and thereby adopt one of the first symbol timing .sub.1 and the second symbol timing .sub.2. In an exemplary implementation, when the energy P.sub.1 is equal to the energy P.sub.2 or the absolute value of the difference between P.sub.1 and P.sub.2 is not greater than a threshold which can be properly set by one carrying out the present invention, the decision circuit 150 determines that the relation conforms to the predetermined relation and thereby determines that the second symbol timing .sub.2 is a symbol timing of a real path, and then the decision circuit 150 directly or indirectly (e.g., through the symbol timing detecting circuit 410) has the estimation signal generating circuit 420 (as indicated by the dashed line in
[0031] The present invention further discloses a symbol timing determining method capable of preventing erroneous symbol timing synchronization of a communication system. An embodiment of the method includes the following steps as shown in
[0043] Since those of ordinary skill in the art can appreciate the details and the modifications of the embodiment of
[0044] To sum up, the present invention can determine whether a symbol timing is associated with a pseudo path or a real path and accordingly adopt a correct symbol timing favorable for the performance of a receiver in a communication system.
[0045] The aforementioned descriptions represent merely the preferred embodiments of the present invention, without any intention to limit the scope of the present invention thereto. Various equivalent changes, alterations, or modifications based on the claims of present invention are all consequently viewed as being embraced by the scope of the present invention.