A New Data-Aided Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation Algorithm for OFDM Systems

This paper proposes a new data-aided carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation scheme for OFDM communications suitable for frequency-selective fading channels. The proposed method is based on the transmission of a specially designed synchronization symbol that creates a particular signal structure between the received observation samples at the receiver. This structure is exploited to derive a very accurate maximum likelihood (ML) CFO estimator. To reduce the estimation complexity, a simplified version with lower computational load is derived which exhibits only a moderate loss in accuracy. This simplified version could typically be employed in the acquisition phase while the original version would allow for a very accurate subsequent tracking phase. Simulations over frequency-selective fading channels confirm the superiority of the proposed method compared to most recent algorithms presented in the literature