Novel OFDM Symbol Timing Recovery Method Based on ICS Correlation

In this paper, a novel OFDM symbol timing recovery method, which is robust to doubly selective fading channels and carrier frequency offset, is proposed for the mobile terminals of CMMB system. The time slot timing synchronization is accomplished by using the inverse sliding correlation between the segmenting Sync sequences, which possess the inverse conjugate symmetry (ICS) characteristic. Furthermore, a fast fine OFDM symbol timing algorithm based on the auto-correlation property of Sync sequences in frequency domain is also presented. According to a detection strategy for the valid taps of current channel, the specific multi-path distribution situation can be obtained. The simulation results show that compared with conventional methods, two proposed algorithm can provide a more accurate and fast estimation for symbol timing offset even in very adverse fading channels.