Data-aided frame timing acquisition for fractal modulation in an AWGN channel

We propose a frame timing acquisition algorithm for fractal modulation in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. Our algorithm exclusively uses the data redundancy inherent in fractal modulation to locate the start time of all the sub-bands (start-of-frame). The acquisition functions are derived using the maximum-likelihood method and the start-of-frame that maximizes the function attained by a serial search algorithm. Monte-Carlo simulations are conducted to evaluate the mean acquisition time of our algorithm.