Approximate ML decoding of coded PSK with no explicit carrier phase reference

An approximate method is discussed for maximum likelihood estimation of coded PSK sequences in the presence of an unknown carrier phase. This method makes use of the Viterbi algorithm to find an optimum path in the encoder trellis diagram. Phase estimation is embedded into the structure of the detection algorithm and the branch metrics in the trellis are modified with respect to those employed with known carrier phase. Comparisons with traditional decoding schemes show that the proposed solution has better performance in terms of acquisition time and cycle slips