Dual-Filter Architecture for Blind Feedback Recovery of the Symbol Timing in Bandlimited Optical Intensity Channels

Reliable recovery of transmission parameters is of paramount importance not only for radio frequency receivers, but also for optical wireless communication solutions. This paper discusses a feedback algorithm for recovering the symbol timing in the context of a bandlimited optical intensity link. The link is determined by a PAM scheme and pulse shaping with squared raised cosine or double jump functions. When preambles or pilot sequences are not available to the receiver, non-data-aided (blind) recovery concepts are useful for tracking smaller variations of the timing error affecting the payload data. The current state-of-the-art solution uses a Gardner detector with two samples per symbol, although this introduces a non-negligible amount of inter-symbol interference resulting in an error floor. To avoid this drawback, the authors propose a dual-filter approach which includes an appropriately designed filter operated in parallel to the receiver filter. Despite the additional complexity of the dual-filter architecture, the recovery loop is very simple and requires only one sample per symbol, representing the lowest degree of complexity in this respect. Open-loop characteristic, jitter performance, and acquisition behavior of the suggested recovery loop are investigated.