An Efficient CFO Estimation Algorithm for the
Downlink of 3GPP-LTE
Feng Wang and Yu Zhu
School of Information Science and Engineering
Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Email: wangfengfudan@gmail.com; zhuyu@fudan.edu.cn
Abstract— Synchronization is of fundamental importance for
wireless cellular systems, especially for orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM) based systems. In this paper,
we investigate carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation in the
initial synchronization for the downlink of 3GPP-long term
evolution (3GPP-LTE). Firstly, three traditional CFO estimation
schemes including the primary synchronization channel (P-SCH)
signals (PSS) correlation based scheme, the cyclic prefix (CP)
based scheme, and the multiple signal classification (MUSIC)
based scheme, are respectively applied. Simulation results show
that the PSS correlation based scheme can achieve better perfor-
mance than the other two. Furthermore, we extend the traditional
PSS correlation based scheme, and propose a more efficient CFO
estimation algorithm. Simulation results show that, compared
to the traditional estimator, the proposed estimator has better
estimation performance in terms of normalized mean square
error (MSE), and achieves a gain of around 2 dB over both
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels and frequency
selective fading channels.
Index Terms— 3GPP-LTE downlink, OFDM, synchronization,
CFO estimation, PSS correlation, MUSIC algorithm, mean
square error.
I. INTRODUCTION
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has
been adopted by many wireless communication standards for
its advantages of effectively reducing the detrimental multipath
effect and providing flexible resource allocation in frequency
selective channels. 3GPP-long term evolution [1] (3GPP-
LTE) has chosen orthogonal frequency division multiple ac-
cess (OFDMA) as the air interface of downlink [2]. Because
OFDMA combines the technologies of OFDM [3] and fre-
quency division multiple access (FDMA), it offers several
favorable features such as high spectral efficiency and simple
receiver architecture, etc. However, OFDM/OFDMA is sensi-
tive to carrier frequency offsets (CFOs) and timing offsets. To
maintain the orthogonality of subcarriers, CFOs and timing
errors must be estimated and adequately compensated for.
Much intensive research effort has been devoted to this issue in
recent years. Morelli et al. gave a comprehensive review on the
synchronization techniques for OFDM/OFDMA systems [4].
In 3GPP-LTE systems, downlink synchronization is the fun-
damental task in cell search [5] when a user equipment (UE)
tries to connect to a base station (BS), i.e., an evolved Node
B (eNB) in terms of the 3GPP-LTE [1]. LTE provides a
primary synchronization channel (P-SCH) and a secondary
synchronization channel (S-SCH) to help a UE to detect
TABLE I
O
VERVIEW OF 3GPP-LTE DOWNLINK SYNCHRONIZATION PROCEDURE.
Procedure Purpose
1. Frequency spectrum
scan
Find the carrier frequency and bandwidth of
the closest cell.
2. P-SCH detection Obtain symbol timing, 5 ms frame timing, and
physical layer ID.
3. CFO estimation Compensate for the CFO, and achieve fre-
quency synchronization.
4. Channel estimation For equalization.
5. S-SCH detection Obtain 10 ms frame timing and cell ID.
and synchronize eNBs. By successfully detecting both P-SCH
and S-SCH, the UE can obtain OFDM symbol timing and
frame timing, and get the basic system information, such as
cell identity (ID), downlink channel bandwidth and cyclic
prefix (CP) type, etc. Tab. I shows a clear overview of the
LTE downlink synchronization.
In this paper, the CFO estimation for the downlink of 3GPP-
LTE is investigated. Several schemes in [4] have been investi-
gated for the CFO estimation in OFDM/OFDMA systems. The
methods of CFO estimation can be classified into two groups,
i.e., the training symbol based (that is, data-aided) approaches
such as [6]-[8], and blind estimation such as [9]-[11]. Moose
in [6] proposed a pilot based CFO estimation scheme by
detecting the phase shifts between several successive identical
pilot blocks. Schmidl and Cox in [7] presented a robust
synchronization scheme for OFDM using one unique OFDM
symbol which has a repetition format within half a symbol
period, and the acquisition is achieved in two separate steps
through the use of a two-symbol training sequence. Morelli
and Mengali in [8] proposed an improved CFO estimation
scheme which is based on the best linear unbiased estimation
(BLUE) principle. A maximum likelihood (ML) CFO esti-
mation was originally proposed in [9] based on CP. Liu and
Tureli in [10] presented a multiple signal classification (MU-
SIC) scheme which is based on subspace spanned by virtual
subcarriers. For LTE syetems, several CFO estimation schemes
in [14] [15] have already been presented. In [14], the proposed
CFO estimation scheme adopted the ML method for PSS
correlation. Xu in [15] porposed a robust hierarchical scheme
in which the CP based lagged auto-correlation is employed to
estimate CFO and the PSS based correlation is used to achieve
a more accurate symbol and frame timing.
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