Ricerc@Sapienza

A new blind estimator of the sampling phase is proposed to support fractionally spaced equalization in underwater digital links employing pulse position modulation. Stemming from the relationship between the “spikiness” of the channel impulse response and the deviation from Gaussianity of the received signal, the sampling phase is estimated by exploiting non-Gaussianity measures offered by nonlinear statistics. In particular, the fourth order (kurtosis) and the first order nonlinear sample moments are considered and the resulting receiver performance is analyzed.