Watermark Synchronization System and Method for Embedding in Features Tolerant to Errors in Feature Estimates at Receiver

摘要

The present invention is directed to a system that includes a signal feature estimator module configured to derive a plurality of signal feature estimate values from a received signal. An inner symbol alignment decoder is coupled to the signal feature estimator module. The inner symbol alignment decoder is configured to generate N probability vectors from the plurality of signal feature estimate values using a predetermined marker vector. N is an integer estimate of a number of symbols in a codeword corresponding to an watermark message that may or may not be embedded in the received signal. An outer soft-input error correction decoder is coupled to the inner decoder. The outer decoder performs a series computations and generates an estimated watermark message based on the N probability vectors. The watermark message is used to communicate data and/or to authenticate the received signal.