Synchronization in Wireless Communications

Call for Papers

The last decade has witnessed an immense increase of wireless communications services to keep pace with the ever increasing demand for higher data rates combined with higher mobility. To satisfy this demand for higher data rates, the throughput over the existing transmission media had to be increased. Several techniques were proposed to boost up the data rate: multicarrier systems to combat selective fading, ultrawide band (UWB) com-munications systems to share the spectrum with other users, MIMO transmissions to in-crease the capacity of wireless links, iteratively decodable codes (e.g., turbo codes and LDPC codes) to improve the quality of the link, cognitive radios, and so forth.

To function properly, the receiver must synchronize with the incoming signal. The accuracy of the synchronization will determine whether the communication system is able to perform well. The receiver needs to determine at which time instants the incoming signal has to be sampled (timing synchronization), and for bandpass communications the receiver needs to adapt the frequency and phase of its local carrier oscillator with those of the received signal (carrier synchronization). However, most of the existing communication systems operate under hostile conditions: low SNR, strong fading, and (multiuser) interference, which make the acquisition of the synchronization parameters burdensome. Therefore, synchronization is considered in general as a challenging task.

The objective of this special issue (whose preparation is also carried out under the auspices of the EC Network of Excellence in Wireless Communications NEWCOM++) is to gather recent advances in the area of synchronization of wireless systems, spanning from theoretical analysis of synchronization schemes to practical implementation issues, from optimal synchronizers to low-complexity ad hoc synchronizers. Suitable topics for this special issue include but are not limited to:

  • Carrier phase and frequency offset estimation and compensation
  • Doppler shift frequency synchronization
  • Phase noise estimation and compensation
  • Timing recovery
  • Sampling clock offset impairments and detection
  • Frame synchronization
  • Joint carrier and timing synchronization
  • Joint synchronization and channel estimation
  • Data-aided, non-data-aided and decision directed synchronization algorithms
  • Feedforward or feedback synchronization algorithms
  • Turbo-synchronization
  • Synchronization for MIMO receivers
  • Signal processing for (distributed) synchronization
  • Acquisition and tracking performance analysis
  • Spreading code acquisition and tracking
  • Theoretical bounds on synchronizer performance
  • Design of efficient training sequences or pilots

Authors should follow the EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking manuscript format described at the journal site http://www.hindawi.com/journals/wcn/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/, according to the following timetable.

Manuscript DueJuly 1, 2008
First Round of ReviewsOctober 1, 2008
Publication DateJanuary 1, 2009

Guest Editors:

  • Heidi Steendam, Department of Telecommunications and Information Processing (TELIN), Ghent University, 9000 Gent, Belgium
  • Mounir Ghogho, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Leeds University, 182 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
  • Marco Luise, Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy
  • Erdal Panayirci, Department of Electronics Engineering, Kadir Has University, 34083 Istanbul, Turkey
  • Erchin Serpedin, Department of Electrical Engineering, A&M University, College Station, TX 77840, USA