Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation for OFDM Systems with Null Subcarriers

An accurate estimation of carrier frequency offset (CFO) is a crucial task for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems but should be performed with affordable computational complexity for practicality. In this paper, the authors derive two new estimation algorithms (one for the integer part and the other for the fractional part of CFO), each of which utilizes only one OFDM block with null subcarriers but offers improved accuracy and reduced complexity. The proposed estimator for fractional CFOs operates iteratively and is insensitive to the initial CFO. The other proposed estimator for integer CFOs employs a pseudonoise binary random sequence to assist in subcarrier arrangement and accurate estimation of the integer CFO. To demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods, numerical results are provided from computer simulation and analysis, and comparisons are made with other existing methods in the literature.