Algorithm for Symbol Rate Estimation of MFSK

Symbol rate is an important parameter in digital communication. In the area of non-cooperative communication, the precision of symbol rate estimation is essential to the success of subsequent signal processes such as demodulation. This paper proposes an approach for estimation of symbol rate for M-ary FSK signals. In this approach, an M-ary FSK signal is decomposed into M single tones, and the symbol rate is estimated by extracting the spectral line corresponding to the symbol rate in the spectrum of the summation of each single tone envelope signal. The implementation of the methodology does not require any apriori information. Computer simulations and analysis show that the approach provides high estimation accuracy and still keeps a good performance even at low input SNR.