Synchronization of a TDMA-OFDM frequency hopping system

In this paper we present a Time Division Multiple Access - Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (TDMA-OFDM)-based radio interface proposal for the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). We focus on synchronization and present an implementable algorithm for the tracking of the mobiles' time and frequency offsets at the base station in the uplink. This algorithm is based on recently developed estimation methods that use redundancy introduced by the cyclic prefix. A modified Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimator for the Additative White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel is used to meet both implementational requirements and performance requirements for frequency-selective fading multiuser environments. Simulation results for a typical UMTS mobile channel environment show that the uncoded symbol error rate of a coherently modulated system using our synchronization scheme is virtually indistinguishable from that of a system with no time and frequency offset.