Data-aided joint symbol timing and CFO estimation for OFDM/OQAM systems

Although the OFDM/offset QAM (OFDM/OQAM) systems is robust against the double selective fading channel, it unfortunately is still sensitive to timing synchronization errors and carrier-frequency offsets (CFOs). To solve this problem of OFDM/OQAM systems, in this paper, a joint symbol timing and CFO estimation algorithm is developed, which employs a sliding window into the preamble consisting of multiple repetitive training sequences. The proposed window-based synchronization (WBS) estimator accurately locates the arrival time of first path, whatever the channel power profile is. Verified by computer simulations, the WBS estimator achieves better performance in multipath fading channels in terms of both timing capture probability and minimum-square-error of CFO estimation versus signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).