Synchronization in wireless communications

The last decade has witnessed an immense increase of wireless communications services in order to keep pace with the ever increasing demand for higher data rates combined with higher mobility. To satisfy this demand for higher data rates, the throughput over the existing transmission media had to be increased. Several techniques were proposed to boost up the data rate: multicarrier systems to combat selective fading, ultra wide band (UWB) communications systems to share the spectrum with other users, MIMO transmissions to increase the capacity of wireless links, iteratively decodable codes (e.g., turbo codes and LDPC codes) to improve the quality of the link, cognitive radios, and so forth