BLIND ACQUISITION CHARACTERISTICS OF PSP-BASED SEQUENCE DETECTORS

The blind acquisition characteristics of binary sequence detection alg orithms based on per-survivor processing (PSP) are demonstrated via co mputer simulations. These capabilities are impressive as compared to t hose of traditional blind equalizers, It is demonstrated that the shor t-term acquisition performance of PSP-based algorithms is dominated by the poor performance obtained when certain sequences are transmitted. These sequences are those that cannot be distinguished by the joint m aximum likelihood (ML) channel and sequence estimator or do not allow for a complete identification of the channel impulse response, Such se quences are defined and analytically characterized, resulting in asymp totic results on performance for joint ML channel and sequence estimat ors. Typical misacquisition conditions, the effects of initialization, and the impact of increased tree search complexity are also all chara cterized by simulations and motivated by the analytical results.