Patent ID: 7564931

Claim:
A method of timing recovery comprising: receiving an input signal; sampling the input signal to produce a plurality of signal samples; detecting the samples to produce an output signal; estimating a timing phase offset with respect to ideal sampling instants described by a second order random walk model; estimating a timing frequency offset with respect to a local clock frequency described by the second order random walk model; using the estimation of the timing phase offset and the estimate of the timing frequency offset to obtain a maximum likelihood estimate of timing error between an actual sampling time instant and a desired sampling time instant; and controlling timing of the sampling in response to the estimation of the maximum likelihood estimate of the timing error includes persurvivor processing, wherein the step of controlling timing of the sampling in response to the estimation of the timing error includes: specifying a covariance matrix representative of uncertainty in the sample timing; and updating the covariant matrix for each maximum-likelihood estimation of timing error.