Frame-Synchronization for OFDM-Transmission with Sectorized Antenna Reception over Rapidly Fading Channels

OFDM is well-known for its ability to cope conveniently with severely frequency-selective channel conditions. However, the performance of OFDM is degraded if the channel is rapidly time-varying as well. Previously, sectorized receive antennas were shown to reduce the channel´s effective Doppler spread. Thereby, rapid channel fluctuations are rendered into slow fluctuations. Hence, intercarrier-interference is avoided, and channel estimation and data detection are alleviated. In this paper we present a novel frame synchronization scheme to determine timing and frequency offsets for sectorized antenna reception.