Abstract:
This invention is a circuit for generating a framing pattern consisting of a pseudo random shift register sequence. This circuit utilizes an extremely long framing pattern without either a large amount of memory or the need to receive a large number of bits in order to recognize the framing pattern. The use of lengthy framing patterns minimizes the chance of false framing caused by patterns in bit positions other than the framing bit position.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This is a continuation-in-part of co-pending application Ser. No. 685,701 filed on Dec. 24, 1984, now abandoned. 
     The present application is related to copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 685,702, filed Dec. 24, 1984, which is assigned to the same Assignee and has the same inventive entity as the present case. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention pertains to digital communications and transmission systems and more particularly to framing information transmitted along with data used to identify various fields within the data stream. 
     In the past, framing patterns have been limited to a small number of bits. For example, the T-carrier systems used in telephony originally employed a framing pattern consisting of alternating ones and zeros. Later, this framing pattern was replaced by two interleaved patterns, one to identify frames and a second pattern to identify a &#34;superframe&#34;, a larger frame consisting of 12 ordinary frames. The first pattern is a basic pattern of alternating ones and zeros. These framing bits occur in alternate framing bit positions and identify the framing bit position within a frame of 193 bits. The second framing pattern, interleaved with the first, is a pattern of (111000). This framing pattern identifies the alignment of the superframe relative to the ordinary frames. 
     Another modification to the framing pattern introduced extended superframe. Extended superframing is a technique wherein the basic framing pattern occurs only every fourth frame and identifies a 24 frame pattern. Since this framing pattern is only 6 bits long, a relatively high potential for false framing is created. This can occur when a particular data bit pattern corresponds to the framing bit pattern. 
     In a superframe transmission system, the alternating ones and zeros with a period of four frames was sometimes imitated by the sign bit of a PCM encoded 2 KHZ sine wave from certain types of data modems. If the carrier system lost framing while this 2 KHZ modem signal was being transmitted on one of the voice channels, the framing circuit could mistake the sign bit of the voice channel for the framing bit. This situation would result in misframing for all 24 channels for considerable periods of time. Similar problems would result with other framing patterns. 
     The above problem could be solved by use of a longer and more complex framing pattern, but this introduces several new problems when previously known techniques are employed. The first problem is that as the framing pattern length is increased, the amount of hardware needed to generate and detect the framing pattern increases correspondingly. For example, a 12 bit framing pattern would require twice as much transmission and detection hardware as a 6 bit framing pattern. Thus, longer framing patterns necessitate increased pattern generation and detection hardware. 
     A second problem is that as the framing pattern length is increased, the time required to transmit the entire framing pattern increases proportionally. For T-carrier systems, the framing bit position is 1 bit out of a 193 bits and occurs only eight thousand times per second. For the extended superframing situation, the framing bit occurs only two thousand times per second. Since the entire framing pattern must be received before it can be recognized, searching for a long pattern through all possible bit positions in either the original T1 carrier or the extended superframing systems would require a great amount of time if a longer pattern were used. 
     Another problem with short framing bit patterns arises when multiple levels of multiplexing are employed in a system. Unless a different framing pattern is used for each multiplexing level, there is a danger of a higher level framing circuit falsely locking onto a lower level framing bit pattern. Separate framing patterns for each level would require long patterns, so that the pattern of each level could be orthogonal to patterns at lower levels. In present day T-carrier multiplexers, the problem is dealt with by using different frame length for each level of multiplexing. This causes lower level patterns to slide through the higher level patterns, eliminating confusion between them. However, the situation also requires demultiplexing of all channels in the high level stream in order to recover even one data channel at the lowest level of multiplexing. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     In modern telecommunications, systems are interconnected via transmission equipment to transmit data at relatively high rates of speed. For recovering this transmitted data, framing data is interleaved with the transmission data. This framing data is generated by a pseudo random framing generator circuit. 
     The pseudo random framing generator circuit includes a clock which is operated to produce a signal of a predetermined frequency. A frame sizing circuit adjusts the predetermined frequency of the clock signal to produce a new periodic signal, which has a period equal to the length in bits of the framing data combined with the transmission data. 
     A shift-register arrangement is connected to the frame sizing circuit and to the transmission equipment. The shift-register arrangement has a single input and a number of tap outputs. The shift-register arrangement cyclically operates in response to the new periodic signal of the frame sizing circuit to produce a number of signals on each of the corresponding number of tap outputs. At least two of the tap outputs are connected via a gating circuit to the input of the shift-register arrangement. Each connected tap output corresponds to a logic 1 bit representation of any polynomial of maximal length defined for a particular size of the shift-register arrangement. 
     The gating circuit is connected between the input and the tap outputs of the shift-register arrangement. The gating circuit also cyclically operates in response to the connected tap output signals to produce the framing data. The gating circuit is connected to the transmission equipment equipment and transmits the framing data to the transmission equipment. 
    
    
     A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a pseudo random framing transmitter circuit embodying the principles of operation of the present invention. 
     FIG. 2 is a pseudo random framing detector circuit embodying the principles of operation of the present invention. 
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     Referring to FIG. 1, the transmitter section of a pseudo random framing circuit is shown. Bit clock 101 is connected to divide by M circuit 102. Divide by M circuit 102 is connected to the clock input of N-stage shift-register 103. N-stage shift-register 103 has two or more output tap connections to exclusive OR gate 104. Exclusive OR gate 104 has its output connected to the input of N-stage shift-register 103. In addition, the output of exclusive OR gate 104 is also connected to the transmission equipment via the FRAMING BITS OUT lead. 
     Thus, the framing pattern output on the FRAMING BITS OUT lead is generated using a transmit shift-register with feedback logic which implements a polynomial which gives a maximal length pseudo random pattern. The input to the first stage of the shift-register (and also the framing pattern output) is the output of the feedback logic 104. 
     With a maximal length polynomial, the length of a repeating pattern is (2 raised to the power N) minus 1 or (2 N )-1, where N is the length in bits of a shift-register. This relationship is shown in Chapter 3 of SHIFT REGISTER SEQUENCES by Golomb Soloman, revised edition, 1981, published by Aegean Park Press. SHIFT REGISTER SEQUENCES by Golomb Soloman is hereby incorporated by reference and made a part hereof. For example, a 10 bit shift-register produces a random pattern of 1023 bits before the same pattern is repeated. This is accomplished by having the shift-register 103 shift to the right by 1 bit position each time a framing bit is required. The larger the value of N chosen, the less the probability that a data sequence will imitate a framing sequence. A 10 bit shift-register seems to be a practical implementation. Although, shift register sizes in the range of all integers from 3 to 64 seem to be most practical, the shift register size may be an integer in the range greater than 64. 
     The N-stage shift-register 103 has tap outputs available from each bit or stage of the shift-register. Some of these tap outputs are shown connected to the input of exclusive OR gate 104. The number of connections from the shift-register 103 to gate 104 and their relative position within the shift-register may be inferred from tables found in the Soloman reference cited above. For example, a 10 bit shift-register would provide a period of 1023 bits before repeating a sequence. One polynomial corresponding to this period is 2011 octal or base eight. To determine the connections from the shift-register to the exclusive OR gate for this polynomial, the octal representation should be depicted in binary. With this binary depiction, the first 10 bits from the right are chosen. Each bit position corresponds to one tap output of the shift-register. In the binary form of this polynomial, a 1 in a particular bit position indicates a connection from that corresponding tap output to the exclusive OR gate 104. For the polynomial 2011, connections from the shift-register to exclusive OR gate 104 would exist for bit position  0 (the right most bit position) and bit position 3. 
     For each shift-register length, N, there are a number of different tap output configurations (polynomials) which give maximal length sequences. These polynomials may be found in the Soloman reference. For example, for a 10 bit shift-register, the Soloman reference shows many polynomials of maximal length, that is 1023. Table III-5 of the Soloman reference indicates there would be 60 possible polynomials however, not all would be of maximal length. It has been shown that maximal length pseudo random sequences produced by polynomials are optimum with respect to auto-correlation and cross-correlation. Thus, for the same length shift-register N, numerous sequences can be generated, each having minimum correlation with shifted versions of itself or with sequences produced by other polynomials. As a result, use of different polynomials to generate different tap output configurations permits multiple levels of multiplexing data without confusion between framing bits of different levels. In addition, this eliminates the need for different frame lengths for each level of multiplexing. 
     A simple example will serve to illustrate the principles discussed above. Assume that the length of shift-register 103 is 4 bits. For a 4 bit long shift-register, the Soloman reference indicates that there are three possible polynomials. Two of these three polynomials are of maximal length. The octal representation of these two maximal length polynomials is 23 and 31. For our example, we will consider the maximal length polynomial 23 in octal. The octal 23 yields a binary representation of 10011. Since, we are working with a 4 bit shift-register, the first 4 bits from the right are chosen, which yields 0011, reading from left to right. In this case, bit positions 0 and 1 (right justified) are connected from shift-register 103 to exclusive OR gate 104. 
     
                       TABLE 1______________________________________4 BIT - 15 STATE SEQUENCESTATE #      BIT POSITIONS______________________________________1            00012            10003            01004            00105            10016            11007            01108            10119            010110           101011           110112           111013           111114           011115           00111            0001______________________________________ 
    
     Table 1 shows the contents for a 4 bit shift register 103 with tap output connected for polynomial 23 octal. The bit positions of shift-register 103 are shown for each state of the shift-register sequence. The shift-register state of all four zeros is illegal. The bit position shown in Table 1 are bits 0 through 3, right justified. Bit 3, the left most bit, for example, a state #1 contains a 1 in bit position zero and a zero in bit positions 1, 2 and 3. Bit 3 is a zero for state #1, as can be seen from Table 1. 
     As shown in Table 1, the output of exclusive OR gate 104 generates 15 pseudo random states before state #1 is repeated. This exactly what is expected, since as previously stated a maximal length polynomial yields (2 N )-1 pseudo random states. For this example, N is equal to 4. Therefore, we should see (2 4 )-1 or 15 different states. This is exactly what is observed from Table 1. 
     Circuit 101 generates the frequency of clock signals. The rate at which divider 102 divides the clock, produced by bit clock 101, is given by M. Where M is the number of bits in a frame including the framing bit. For example, in standard T1 carrier framing, M would be equal to 193, 192 data bits plus 1 framing bit. 
     Use of divide by M circuit 102 allows framing to be achieved without the necessity of transmitting framing bits in data bit positions. Thus, this invention allows identification of the one framing or synchronization bit within a large group of data bits without utilizing or modifying the data bits. The framing pattern generated by this device is positionally independent of the relationship between data and framing bits. 
     Now turning to FIG. 2, the receiver section of the pseudo random framing circuit is shown. The output of the receiver portion of the transmission equipment (not shown) is connected via the RECEIVED BITS IN lead to bit clock recovery 201 and to switch 205. In addition, the transmission equipment is also connected via the RECEIVED BITS IN lead to framing control circuit 206. 
     Bit clock recovery 201 is connected to divide by M circuit 202. Divide by M circuit 202 has its output connected to the clock input of framing control circuit 206 and to the clock input of N-stage shift-register 203. Framing control circuit 206 is connected to the RESET lead of divide by M circuit 202. Further, framing control circuit 206 is connected to switch 205. Switch 205 is a single pole double throw switch, or a logic circuit wired to perform the switch function, normally operated to gate the output of exclusive OR gate 204 to the input of N-stage shift-register 203. Switch 205 may be operated by framing control circuit 206 to disconnect the output of exclusive OR gate 204 from the input of N-stage shift-register 203 and to connect the output of the transmission equipment directly to N-stage shift-register 203 via the RECEIVE BITS IN lead. 
     N-stage shift-register 203 is connected to exclusive OR gate 204 via a number of tap outputs from shift-register 203. The output of exclusive OR gate 204 is connected to switch 205, as mentioned above. In addition, the output of exclusive OR gate 204 is connected to framing control circuit 206. Lastly, framing control circuit 206 is connected to the logic of the digital communications system via the IN FRAME lead. 
     Receive bits are applied via the RECEIVED BITS IN lead to bit clock recovery circuit 201. Bit clock recovery circuit 201 drives divide by M circuit 202. M is the number of bits including framing bits within a particular frame. Divide by M circuit 202 produces a preliminary framing signal. Since the divide ratio M is equal to the number of bits per frame, a candidate framing bit, which may or may not be the actual framing bit, is identified in the incoming bit stream. 
     The output of divide by M circuit 202 causes the N-stage shift-register 203 to shift 1 bit to the right. Initially, framing control circuit 206 operates switch 205 such that the RECEIVED BITS IN lead is connected to the input of the N-stage shift-register 203. This shifting continues for N complete cycles of the divide circuit 202. At that time, if the candidate bit is the actual framing bit, the contents of the receive shift-register 203 will agree with the contents of the transmit shift-register. At this time, the frame control circuit 206 may operate switch 205 so that the proper pseudo random framing pattern is continuously generated locally by 203 and 204, without reference to the incoming received bits. 
     Framing control circuit 206 compares the predicted framing bits from the output of exclusive OR gate 204 with the candidate framing bits which are received via the transmission channel. Framing control logic 206 may be implemented by using an up/down counter for counting the number of agreements in a known number of bits. If the framing control circuit 206 concludes that there is sufficient agreement between the candidate and the predicted framing bits, it produces a signal on the IN FRAME lead. If framing control logic 206 determines that there is insufficient comparison between the candidate and predicted framing bits, control circuit 206 indicates via the RESET lead to divide by M circuit 202 to reset divide circuit 202, and at the same time operates switch 205 so that the input of shift-register 203 is connected to the RECEIVED BITS IN lead. As a result, divide by M circuit 202 selects a different candidate bit position within the frame to be tested as the framing bit. This process continues until proper comparison is found. At that time, the corresponding signal on the IN FRAME lead is produced to indicate the comparison. 
     Although the preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated, and that form described in detail, it will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention or from the scope of the appended claims.