Joint symbol timing and frequency offset estimation for wireless OFDM systems

This work presents a new technique for blind and joint estimation of symbol timing and carrier frequency offset in wireless orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The joint estimation is achieved by sensing the interference introduced at the fast Fourier transform (FFT) output when a carrier frequency or timing offsets exist. The synchronization parameters are selected such that the interference is minimized. The proposed joint estimator is highly efficient because it does not require any overhead or channel state information. Simulation results show that the system is effective and robust even at low signal-to-noise ratios.