An Initial Timing Offset Estimation Method for OFDM Systems in Rayleigh Fading Channel

An initial timing offset estimation method for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems is proposed. Conventional preamble-based synchronization methods result in performance degradation due to the time variation in the power delay profile of the channel. We propose a simple but efficient synchronization method using a specifically designed preamble. The performance of the proposed estimator is evaluated by computer simulations. The simulation results show that the proposed estimator has a significantly smaller mean squared error (MSE) than other estimators even in the fast varying channel.