A peak to peak frame synchronization algorithm for data frames transmitted asynchronously over fading channels

Abstract

Space-division multiple access communication system architectures employing frame-switching, where ingress frames from one of N ingress ports are switched to one of N egress ports, can support the simultaneous transmission of data from multiple users. If the switched inputs have undergone channel fading, the frame switch may (incorrectly) switch ingress frames to (incorrect) egress ports. When frame switch errors occur, the egress port data streams may contain an incorrect number of data frames and/or erroneous frame sequence numbers resulting in frame synchronization problems at the end receiver associated with that particular egress port. A maximum-likelihood algorithm is employed to run at the end receiver to correctly recover frames and corresponding frames sequence numbers for proper frame synchronization.