Maximizing CFO Estimation Range using a New OFDM Symbol Structure

Carrier frequency offset (CFO) is a major contributor to the inter-carrier interference in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In order to overcome CFO at the receiver, a new OFDM symbol structure based on extending the transmitted symbol by inserting extra bits at the front of it before transmission is applied in this paper. The proposed method is capable of correcting frequency offset in the range of multiples of subcarrier spacing depending on the number of added extra bits. This is performed at the expense of transmitted power and data rate due to the insertion of extra bits. Simulation results indicate the performance improvement over both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and multipath fading channels.