Phase-noise compensated digital communication receiver and method therefor

A method of compensating for phase noise in a digital communication receiver comprising the steps of:

• altering a phase-conveying signal generated by a phase integrator in a carrier tracking loop, said phase-conveying signal being altered to minimize a phase-constellation error signal generated in said carrier tracking loop;
• obtaining a signal from said carrier tracking loop;
• delaying said signal extracted from said carrier tracking loop to generate a delayed carrier tracking loop signal, said delayed carrier tracking loop signal being external to said carrier tracking loop;
• rotating said delayed carrier tracking loop signal in response to said phase-conveying signal to generate an open-loop phase signal;
• and
• extracting communicated data from said open-loop phase signal.

A phase-noise-compensated receiver for digital communication comprising:

• an oscillation circuit configured to generate an oscillation signal which exhibits an amount of phase noise;
• a mixing circuit adapted to receive a communication signal and said oscillation signal, said mixing circuit generating a down-converted digital communication signal that is influenced by said amount of phase noise;
• a carrier tracking loop having-an input adapted to receive said down-converted digital communication signal, having a phase constellation error detector which detects phase constellation errors in accordance with a modulation order wherein data are communicated at greater than or equal to four bits per unit interval, and having a phase integrator which generates a phase-conveying signal that experiences a group delay plus an implementation delay relative to said down-converted digital communication signal;
• a delay element having an input coupled to said carrier tracking loop and having an output, said delay element providing a delay of a predetermined duration which substantially compensates for said group delay plus said implementation delay;
• a phase rotator having a first input coupled to said delay element output, a second input coupled to said phase integrator and an output;
• and
• a decoder having an input coupled to said phase rotator output, said decoder providing communicated data.