An improved ESPRIT-based blind CFO estimation algorithm in OFDM systems

Carrier frequency offset (CFO) is an important issue in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. It destroys the orthogonality between subcarriers and causes degradation in system performance. This paper presents an improved algorithm for the existing ESPRIT-based CFO estimation method. The proposed method estimates the CFO by taking the determinant of a matrix within the ESPRIT algorithm. It is a simple modification to the original ESPRIT-based method and its computational overhead is low. The performance analysis shows that the proposed method can achieve a lower mean square error.