Joint frequency and symbol synchronization schemes for an OFDM system

This paper proposes two multi-stage joint symbol timing and carrier frequency synchronization schemes for an orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) system. Simultaneous estimation of symbol timing and frequency offset is derived from the maximum likelihood (ML) principle, assuming a cyclic prefix (guard interval) is inserted in each OFDM symbol. One of the proposed algorithms derives an initial frequency estimate in the first stage that reduces the frequency uncertainty to only two or three sub-carrier spacings. The timing information and a finer frequency estimate that has a resolution of a sub-carrier spacing are obtained in the second stage. The third stage provides an estimation for the residual fractional frequency error. The other algorithm bypasses the first stage for one can use the second stage alone to search for the timing and frequency offsets. However, the computing complexity of the second stage is higher than that of the first stage, thus the three-stage algorithm is a preferred choice unless the frequency uncertainty is small. Simulation results show that both algorithms yield excellent performance not only in white Gaussian channels but also in multipath fading channels.