Description

Telecommunications Circuits Laboratory EPFL

2 Frame Synchronization
In the first lab, the received signal samples corresponded exactly to the transmitted symbols, i.e. the beginning and the end of the data was inherently given. In reality, we receive a signal continuously, and we have to detect the beginning of the data frames within the received signal. This operation is called Frame Synchronization.
A common way to achieve frame synchronization is to prepend the data blocks with a special signal that is known to the receiver, called a preamble. The receiver can then search for the preamble using a correlation filter. If the preamble is long enough and has a random-like structure, it is very unlikely that the data signal (or the received noise) has a similar shape as the preamble, and therefore a peak in the correlator output indicates with high probability the beginning of a data frame.
2.1 The Need for a Random-Like Structure
In the introduction above, we mentioned that the preamble should have a random-like structure. Why is this the case? Could we not instead use, e.g. a series of ones as the known data? After all, this would simplify the correlator, since all multiplications could be omitted and the correlator could simply be implemented as a summation over Np consecutive received symbols, where Np is the length of the preamble.
First, it is likely that such a data sequence also occurs in the payload data. Consider for instance a black and white bitmap file, where a white pixel is stored as the symbol 0, and a black pixel as 1. Since there are many consecutive white or black pixels, the correlator would not be able to differentiate between the preamble and the actual data. By using a random-like data sequence as preamble, we can circumvent this problem.

(a) (b)
Figure 2.1: Autocorrelation of the all-ones sequence (a) and a random sequence (b) of length Np = 20.

Figure 2.2: LFSR used for creating the frame synchronization sequence
latter case, it will still be possible to identify the peak, as long as the SNR is not too low.
It should be clear now that a random-like data sequence should be used as preamble. Why random-like? Obviously, the receiver needs to know the sequence in order to look for it, so the transmitter cannot use really random data. Hence, we need a sequence which has statistical properties similar to random noise, but which is still reproducible in the receiver. One possibility would be to create a random sequence once, and then store it in the transmitter and receiver. But this would be very memory consuming if the sequence is long.
Another possibility is to use pseudo-noise (PN) sequences. These are sequences with randomlike statistical properties, but which can still be reproduced deterministically. A common way to generate PN sequences is by means of a linear feedback shift register (LFSR). The output of the LFSR is periodic and it can be shown that the statistical properties of the LFSR output closely resemble those of a really random sequence generated by flipping a fair coin Np times. In order to reproduce the sequence, the receiver only needs to the position of the LFSR feedback taps, the initial state of the LFSR, and the length of the sequence.
In the lab, we use the LFSR depicted in Figure 2.2, initialized with all ones. The length of the preamble is Np = 100. The bits of the preamble are modulated using binary phase shift keying (BPSK), where the bit 0 is mapped to the symbol +1, and the bit 1 is mapped to the symbol −1.
The Figure 2.3 illustrate the functionning of an LFSR over 4 iterations.
n = 0 n = 1

Figure 2.3: Illustration of Functionning principle of an LFSR
2.2 The Detection Algorithm
Our goal is to detect the presence of the known preamble sequence p[i],i = 0,1,…,Np − 1
in the received signal r[n] = a[n] + w[n]. The main idea, as already mentioned, is to feed the received signal through a correlator, which correlates the received signal with the known preamble. As soon as the portion of the received signal that is inside the correlator closely resembles the preamble, the magnitude of the correlator output exhibits a distinct peak.
How do we detect this peak? We could directly take the magnitude of the correlator output and compare it to a certain threshold value. However, the problem is that the absolute strength of the correlator output depends on the unknown SNR value. In order to use a fixed threshold for peak detection, the correlator output must be normalized with respect to the received signal power. The correlator output at discrete time n can be written as
Np−1
c[n] = X p∗[i]r[n + i].
i=0
We decide on the presence of a peak if the following condition is fulfilled: (2.1)
(2.2)
The denominator in (2.2) is the energy of the received signal that is currently inside the correlation filter, and γ is the decision threshold.
2.3 Using the Profiler in MATLAB
In the previous assignment, you used the commands tic and toc to measure the overall execution time of your code. For a more detailed analysis, you can use the MATLAB profiler, which gives you a detailed report including the execution of each line that was executed and how often it was called. The profiler can be accessed by using the following commands:
• profile on starts the profiler, clearing previously recorded profiling statistics.
No Transmission Preamble
BPSK ImageData
QPSK
Figure 2.4: Signal with unknown number of time steps where no transmission occurs, followed by the preamble (BPSK) and the image data (QPSK).
• profile off stops the profiler.
• profile viewer stops the profiler and displays the results in the profiler window.
• profsave saves the results in HTML format. The HTML files are stored in a subfolder of the current folder named profile results.
2.4 Your Tasks
A2T1 Implement the LFSR shown in Figure 2.2 as a MATLAB function and generate the preamble sequence p[i].
A2T2 The matrix file task2.mat contains a signal where the start of the transmission occurs at an unknown time step and is structured as shown in Figure 2.4.
(a) Implement the correlator as a MATLAB function following the equations (2.1-2.2).
(b) Plot the normalized and unnormalized correlator output for several SNR values ranging from −5 dB to 10 dB. You should notice a distinct peak within the signal.
A2T3 In this task, you will convert your correlator into a preamble detector. Write the detector function that returns the index of the first sample of the ImageData. (Hint: make use of the code of the correlator.)
A2T4 In this task, you will read the data contained in the received signal, and display the picture transmitted. Your receiver should run the frame synchronization algorithm on the (noiseless) signal contained in task2.mat until the preamble is detected. Then, the transmitted image should be received and displayed.
Since the signal is noiseless, if your choice of peak detection threshold γ is correct, the image should always be displayed perfectly. In order to highlight the importance of frame synchronization, pick a threshold that will result in false alarms (a very low threshold will do this).
Bonus: Use the MATLAB profiler on your code. Which part of your code takes the longest time to run?