Spectral monitoring and parameter estimation for ZP-OFDM signals

Spectral monitoring has received considerable attention in the context of opportunistic and cognitive radio systems. The increasing number of wireless technologies calls for efficient techniques to monitor the radio frequency spectrum. Spectral monitoring is based on signal detection tools to reduce the spectral search to the signals of interest as well as estimation tools to identify their characteristics (carrier frequency, bandwidth, power, modulation, symbol duration...). In this paper, the spectral components are estimated by the averaged periodogram non-parametric approach using an FFT. The signals of interest are further processed to determine the type of modulation (single-carrier or multi-carrier). In particular, we develop a parameter estimation tool for ZP-OFDM signals based on power autocorrelation to determine their symbol and zero padding duration. Simulation results are provided for an extensive number of generated signals under frequency selective channels, to assess the performance of the signal detection in realistic scenarios.