Blind Phase-Offset Estimation via Equal-Angle Partitioning of the I/Q Plane

Abstract

In digital communication systems, accurate phase-offset estimation is essential for recovering the transmitted information. While cooperative systems often rely on reference signals for this task, such prior knowledge of the transmitter is unavailable in non-cooperative contexts. Consequently, the receiver should estimate the phase offset solely from the received data symbols. This paper proposes a blind phase-offset estimator for phase modulated signals based on equal-angle partitioning of the phase and quadrature(I/Q) plane. Specifically, the I/Q plane is divided into equal-angle regions, and the received symbols in each region are rotated by the bisector angle of that region. The rotated symbols are then summed, and the angle of the resulting sum is taken as the phase-offset estimate. Using this estimate, the phase of all received symbols is compensated, and the procedure is repeated iteratively to improve estimation accuracy. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms conventional algorithms.