Improvement of maximum likelihood frequency offset estimation for multi-carrier CDMA systems over multipath fading channel

In this paper, we present a novel technique for blind carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation in multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) under multipath Rayleigh fading channel. The proposed technique exploits the information about channel impulse response (CIR) duration to improve the accuracy of the maximum likelihood (ML) CFO estimator. The CIR duration is approximated by observing the cyclic correlation property of the cyclic prefix (CP). The simulation results show benefits of the proposed technique compared with the conventional technique.