A frame synchronization and frequency offset estimation algorithm for OFDM system and its analysis

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a parallel transmission scheme for transmitting data at very high rates over time dispersive radio channels. In an OFDM system, frame synchronization and frequency offset estimation are extremely important for maintaining orthogonality among the subcarriers. In this paper, for a preamble having two identical halves in time, a timing metric is proposed for OFDM frame synchronization. The timing metric is analyzed and its mean values at the preamble boundary and in its neighborhood are evaluated, for AWGN and for frequency selective channels with specified mean power profile of the channel taps, and the variance expression is derived for AWGN case. Since the derivation of the variance expression for frequency selective channel case is tedious, we used simulations to estimate the same. Based on the theoretical value of the mean and estimate of the variance, we suggest a threshold for detection of the preamble boundary and evaluating the probability of false and correct detections. We also suggest a method for a threshold selection and the preamble boundary detection in practical applications. A simple and computationally efficient method for estimating fractional and integer frequency offset, using the same preamble, is also described. Simulations are used to corroborate the results of the analysis. The proposed method of frame synchronization and frequency offset estimation is applied to the downlink synchronization in OFDM mode of wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) standard IEEE 802.16-2004, and its performance is studied through simulations

Joint CFO and channel estimation for ZP-OFDM modulated two-way relay networks

In this paper, we study the problem of joint carrier frequency offset (CFO) and channel estimation for two-way relay network (TWRN). We consider the frequency selective fading channels and adopt the zero padding (ZP) based orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) as the modulation of the transmission. Due to the mixture of the first and the second transmission phases, the joint estimation problem becomes much challenging than that in the traditional point-to-point communication systems. By introducing some redundancy, we modify the structure of ZP-OFDM to cope with non-zero frequency synchronization errors. We then propose a nulling-based least square (NLS) method for joint CFO and channel estimation. A detailed performance analysis of NLS has been conducted, where we prove that the unbiasedness of NLS and derive the closed-form estimation mean-square-error (MSE) at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Finally, simulations are provided to corroborate the proposed studies. ©2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe IEEE Conference on Wireless Communications and Networking (WCNC 2010), Sydney, NSW., 18-21 April 2010. In Proceedings of WCNC, 2010, p. 1-

TS-MUWSN: Time synchronization for mobile underwater sensor networks

Time synchronization is an important, yet challenging, problem in underwater sensor networks (UWSNs). This challenge can be attributed to: 1) messaging timestamping; 2) node mobility; and 3) Doppler scale effect. To mitigate these problems, we present an acoustic-based time-synchronization algorithm for UWSN, where we compare several message time-stamping algorithms in addition to different Doppler scale estimators. A synchronization system is based on a bidirectional message exchange between a reference node and a slave one, which has to be synchronized. Therefore, we take as reference the DA-Sync-like protocol (Liu et al., 2014), which takes into account node's movement by using first-order kinematic equations, which refine Doppler scale factor estimation accuracy, and result in better synchronization performance. In our study, we propose to modify both time-stamping and Doppler scale estimation procedures. Besides simulation, we also perform real tests in controlled underwater communication in a water test tank and a shallow-water test in the Mediterranean Sea.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

An Efficient Data-aided Synchronization in L-DACS1 for Aeronautical Communications

L-band Digital Aeronautical Communication System type-1 (L-DACS1) is an emerging standard that aims at enhancing air traffic management (ATM) by transitioning the traditional analog aeronautical communication systems to the superior and highly efficient digital domain. L-DACS1 employs modern and efficient orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation technique to achieve more efficient and higher data rate in comparison to the existing aeronautical communication systems. However, the performance of OFDM systems is very sensitive to synchronization errors. L-DACS1 transmission is in the L-band aeronautical channels that suffer from large interference and large Doppler shifts, which makes the synchronization for L-DACS more challenging. This paper proposes a novel computationally efficient synchronization method for L-DACS1 systems that offers robust performance. Through simulation, the proposed method is shown to provide accurate symbol timing offset (STO) estimation as well as fractional carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation in a range of aeronautical channels. In particular, it can yield excellent synchronization performance in the face of a large carrier frequency offset.Comment: In the proceeding of International Conference on Data Mining, Communications and Information Technology (DMCIT