Efficient carrier recovery for FBMC systems over time-frequency selective channels

This paper addresses the problem of carrier frequency offset recovery for filter bank multicarrier transmissions over time-frequency selective fading channels. Rather than either relying on known pilot symbols multiplexed within the transmitted burst or exploiting the specific signal structure in a blind mode, the maximum likelihood estimation algorithm we derive takes advantage of both pilot symbols and also indirectly of the data symbols through differential decisions. When compared to conventional pilot-based methods, the proposed approach improves the frequency acquisition range without degrading accuracy, while retaining approximately the same computational load.