CFO Estimation for OFDM-based Massive MIMO Systems in Asymptotic Regime

Massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) plays a pivotal role in the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks. However, the carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation is a challenging issue in the uplink of multi-user massive MIMO systems. In fact, frequency synchronization can impose a considerable amount of computational complexity to the base station (BS) due to a large number of BS antennas. In this paper, thanks to the properties of massive MIMO in the asymptotic regime, we develop a simple synchronization technique and derive a closed form equation for CFO estimation. We show that the phase information of the covariance matrix of the received signals is solely dependent on the users' CFOs. Hence, if a real-valued pilot is chosen, the CFO values can be straightforwardly calculated from this matrix. Hence, there is no need to deal with a complex optimization problem like the other existing CFO estimation techniques in the literature. Our simulation results testify the efficacy of our proposed CFO estimation technique. As we have shown, the performance of our method does not deteriorate as the number of users increases.