An Approximate Method of Carrier Frequency

Offset (CFO) Estimation for OFDM System

Dajin Wang, Ou Wang
Beijing
Samsung Telecom R&D Center
BeijingUniversity of Posts and Telecommunications
Email: dajin.wang@samsung.com, wangou2006@gmail.com

AbstractWe investigate the problem of carrier frequency We also develop a fast algorithm with lower computational
offset (CFO) estimation for orthogonal frequency division mul- complexity.
tiplexing (OFDM) systems. An approximated method for CFO
estimation is derived. We show that the introduction of CFO can II. S YSTEM M ODEL
be taken as the result of passing through a frequency domain
filter, whose coefficients are functions of CFO. To estimate the Let Nc be the number of subcarriers and P (k, l) be the pilot
CFO, we construct an estimator based on the filter coefficients. transmitted on the k-th subcarrier of the l-th training symbol.
In this way, the CFO estimation problem is converted to filter As we only consider one pilot in this paper, the symbol index
coefficients estimation. We also develop a fast algorithm with
lower computational complexity. We show our method is effective l is omitted without ambiguity. The pilot signal in frequency
for channel with large Doppler spread. domain is a column vector with Nc elements, denoted by
P = [P (0), P (1), ..., P (Nc 1)]T
I. I NTRODUCTION
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has At the transmitter, P is serial-to-parallel converted, modulated,
been adopted as the key technology for standards such as and fed into an Nc point inverse discrete Fourier transform
digital video broadcasting (DVB), IEEE 802.11a, HiperLAN (IDFT) unit that outputs
and Long Term Evolution (LTE), for its ability in mitigating p = [p(0), p(1), ..., p(Nc 1)]T
multi-path effects. However, OFDM is vulnerable to carrier
frequency offset (CFO), which causes a loss of sub-channel By adding a cyclic prefix to the symbols, x = [p(Nc L +
orthogonality and introduces inter-carrier interference (ICI). 1), p(Nc L + 2), , p(Nc 1), p(0), p(1), ..., p(Nc 1)]T
The CFO is caused by frequency mismatch between the was input to the channel. Consider the channel output
oscillators used in the radio transmitters and receivers and/or L1
Doppler shifts. Therefore, CFO estimation plays a crucial role
X
y[m] = ej2f mT s hl x[m l] + w[m]
in OFDM systems. l=0
CFO estimation for OFDM system has been studied by re-
searchers. Generally speaking, there are two proposed method- where w[m] is the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), f
ologies in CFO estimation, i.e., blind (non-data aided) and is the frequency offset and T s is the sample rate.
pilot-based (data-aided) methods. The blind methods [14] The receiver ignores the first L 1 symbols by considering
exploit the inherent structure of OFDM signals to estima- only the output over the time interval m [L, Nc +L1]. De-
tion CFO. The pilot-based methods can be classified as two noting the output of length Nc by p = [ p(0), p(1), ..., p(Nc
classes, depending on the number of pilots used. For pilot- 1)]T = [y[L], , y[Nc +L1]]T and the channel by a vector
based methods, [5, 6] presented a CFO estimator based on of length Nc
the maximum-likelihood (ML) criterion. [7, 8] considered h = [h0 , , hL1 , 0, , 0]T
joint CFO and channel estimation. Most algorithms on CFO
estimation in OFDM systems are based on the auto-correlation So we have
based method [6, 9], which uses cyclic prefix (CP) or pilots p = diag(ee) h ~ p + w (1)
signals. However, this method is based on the assumption that
during the time interval of two pilots, the channel is time- where ~ denotes the circular convolution, e =
invariant. The assumption is violated for channel with large [1, ej2 , ..., ej2(Nc 1) ]T and is the effective CFO
Doppler spread. relative to the sub-carrier spacing f , i.e., = f /f ,
In this paper, we consider CFO estimation in OFDM sys- f = Fs /Nc , where Fs = 1/Ts is the sample rate.
tems using only one pilot. Although our method is an approx- Take discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of both sides of (1)
imation, it achieves good performance for channel with large 1
Doppler spread, in which auto-correlation based method fails. P = P ~ DFT{ee} + w
HP (2)
Nc

978-1-4799-4449-1/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

where P is the DFT of p and H = diag(DFT{h
h}) is a diagonal are set to zero. According to (6), we have
matrix whose diagonal entry is the DFT of h .
In this paper, we focus on the estimation of CFO and Nc P (k)
c 1
NX
suppose H = I and w = 0 for simplicity. As a result, (1)
can be simplified as = E(m)P ((k m))Nc
m=0
L1 c 1
NX
p(n) = p(n)e(n), n = 1, 2, , Nc 1 (3) X
= E(m)P ((k m))Nc + E(m)P ((k m))Nc
m=0 m=Nc L2
and (2) can be simplified as
L1 1
(a) X X
1 = E(m)P ((k m))Nc + E(n)P ((k n))Nc
P = P ~ DFT{ee} (4)
Nc m=0 n=L2
L1
X
where e(n) = ej2n . = E(m)P ((k m))Nc (7)
m=L2
III. M AIN R ESULT The equality (a) holds for the periodicity of DFT.
In this section, we derived an estimator for CFO estimation Let c = [E(L2 ), , E(1), E(0), E(1), , E(L1 )]T .
and gave a straightforward algorithm. The estimator is related (7) implies Nc P is the circular convolution of P and c .
to the coefficients of a frequency domain filter. First, we prove 1 (a) 1
that the introduction of CFO can be taken as the result of P = P ~c P c (8)
Nc Nc
passing through a frequency domain filter, whose coefficients
are functions of CFO. Then we construct an estimator based on For the approximation (a), note that P can be taken as an
filter coefficients, which is linear to CFO. There are three steps P c , with the first L1 + L2 1
aliasing version of (1/Nc )P
to estimate the CFO: 1) estimate the coefficients of the filter; points suffer from aliasing distortion. The aliasing distortion
2) calculate the estimator according to the filter coefficients; is ignorable as L1 + L2 1  Nc .
3) estimate the CFO according to the estimator. That means the received frequency signal P is got by mak-
ing P through a frequency domain filter, whose coefficients
A. The Frequency Domain Filter are E(k), L1 k L2 .

In this part, we show that the presence of CFO is effect of B. The Approximate Estimator
passing through a frequency domain filter, whose coefficients
We have seen in the previous part that the presence of CFO
are functions of CFO. As expressed in (1), the introduction
is can be taken as the result of passing through a frequency
of CFO is equivalent to applying a linear phase rotation in
domain filter, and the filter coefficients are functions of CFO
time domain, which is equivalent to applying a cyclic shift in
according to (5). Now we construct an estimator which is
the frequency domain. And the cyclic shift in the frequency
linear to the effective CFO .
domain is approximately equivalent to passing through a
Theorem 1: The presence of CFO can be approximately
frequency domain filter.
modeled as passing through a frequency domain filter with 3
Denote E = DFT{ee} the DFT of e , coefficients cl , l = 1, 0, 1.
1 1 ej2(k) 1 ej(l) sin[(l )]
E(k) = cl = (9)
Nc 1 ej2(k)/Nc Nc ej(l)/Nc sin[(l )/Nc ]
(5)
1 ej(k) sin[(k )]
=
Nc ej(k)/Nc sin[(k )/Nc ] Real{ c1cc
0
1
} is approximately linear to as 0.
c1 c1
where n = 1, 2, , Nc 1, k = 0, 1, , Nc 1. (4) can Real{ }2 (10)
also be written as c0

Nc 1
In Theorem 1 we assume that the filter taps number L = 3.
1 X Although large L is available, the coefficients associate with
P (k) = E(m)P ((k m))Nc (6)
Nc m=0 these taps are small and ignorable.
Weve already shown the introduction of CFO is approx-
where k = 0, 1, , Nc 1 and P ((m))Nc denotes the imately equivalent to passing through a frequency domain
sequence P (m modulo Nc ). filter, whose coefficients are expressed in (5). The rest of
Note that most points of E are approximate to zero except the proof is in the appendix. According to Theorem 1, we
those near by k = 0 and k = Nc . So the convolution in (6) can use Real{ c1cc
0
1
} as the estimator of . In this way
can be greatly simplified. Suppose there are only L = L1 +L2 the estimation of CFO is converted to the problem of filter
points of E(k) is not equal to zero and the rest Nc L points coefficients estimation, which is extensively studied.
C. Filter Coefficients Estimation where k P l k is the norm of P l and (a) follows that P H
l P l0 =
0 for l0 6= l. According to (14), cl can be expressed as
The problem of filter coefficients estimation is a standard
topic for signal processing. In this paper we only consider the PH
l P
least-squares (LS) solution. cl = , l = 1, 0, 1 (15)
k P l k2
Ignore the constant factor 1/Nc and rewrite (8) as
According to Theorem 1, that completes the proof.
P = P c = [P
P 1 , P 0 , P 1 ] c (11a) Note that given the pseudonoise property of P , we have
k P 1 k=k P 0 k=k P 1 k= C for sufficient large N . So (13)
That is can be simplified as
H
PH

P (1) P (0) P (1) P (2) 1P P 1 P
Real{ } (16)

P (2) P (1) P (2) P (3) c1
2 P H P
0
. = c0 (11b)

.. .. ..
.. . . . c1 Furthermore, for pilot signals with CAZAC (constant ampli-
P (N ) P (N 1)P (N )P (N + 1) tude zero autocorrelation) property, the condition k P l k= C
for l = 1, 0, 1 is strictly holds and we have following
where P 1 = [P (0), P (1), , P (N 1)]T , P 0 = corollary.
[P (1), P (2), , P (N )]T and P 1 = [P (2), P (3), , P (N + Corollary 1: If the pilot signal satisfies a CAZAC property,
1)]T . (16) holds.
The LS solution of c is
IV. FAST A LGORITHM
c = PP = (PH P)1 PH P (12)
Weve seen that there is no need to solve the pseudoin-
H 1 H
where P = (P P) P is the pseudoinverse of P. verse for pilots with pseudonoise characteristic. But for those
This is a LS estimation problem, which can be solved by reference signals without pseudonoise characteristic, we have
many methods, such as Cholesky decomposition, QR decom- to compute the pseudoinverse. To reduce the computational
position, LDU decomposition, singular-value decomposition complexity, we developed a fast algorithm in this section.
(SVD), etc [10]. After solving c , we can estimate according Define P0 as follows
to the estimator Real{ c1cc

0
1
}. So the following algorithm is P (N + 1) P (0) P (1) ... P (N )
straightforward, referred to as pseudoinverse based algorithm. P (N ) P (N + 1) P (0) ... P (N 1)

0 P (N 1) P (N ) P (N + 1) ... P (N 2)
P = (17)
Algorithm 1 Pseudoinverse based Algorithm .. .. .. . . ..
. . . . .
1: Calculate c according to (12). P (0) P (1) P (2) ... P (N + 1)
c1 c1
2: Estimate CFO f = Real{ 2N } Fs Hz.
c c0
The following equality is an extension of (11).
0
Note that the pilot signal P is known at the receiver, P P = P0 c 0 (18a)
can be calculated and stored in a table. In this way the
P (N + 1)c1 + P (0)c0 + P (1)c1

c1
computational complexity is greatly reduced. P (N )c1 + P (N + 1)c0 + P (0)c1 c0
For some cases, we dont need to calculate the pseudoin-
P (N )



c1

verse P . Many pilot signals have a pseudonoise characteristic,
P (N 1)
0
=P 0

i.e., its shifted versions are nearly orthogonal to each other,
..



..

we can estimate CFO by the following theorem. . .
Theorem 2: If P l , l = 1, 0, 1 defined in (11) are orthogo-
P (1) 0
nal to each other, we have (18b)
Note that P0 is a circulant matrix, which can be decomposed
PH 2 PH 2
1P / k P 1 k P 1 P/ kP1 k as
Real{ } (13)
2 P H P / k P 0 k2
0
P0 = UUH (19)

Geometrically, we view the received signal P as lied in where U = [y (0) |y (1) | |y (N 1) ] is a unitary, i.e., UUH =
the span of the Rank(P) = 3 vectors. By the pseudonoise I. y (i) is the eigenvector

property, P i are orthogonal to each other. A set of 3 sufficient y (m) = 1/ N (1, e2jm/N , , e2jm(N 1)/N )T (20)
statistics can be obtained by projecting P onto each of these
vectors P i . We get the sufficient statistics of cl by projecting is a diagonal matrix of the eigenvalue
P onto P l N 1
X
(a) m = Pk0 e2jmk/N (21)
PH H
P 1 , P 0 , P 1 ] c = k P l k2 cl
l P = P l [P (14) k=0
 Estimated CFO and error (Hz) Pseudoinverse based algorithm Fast Algorithm
However, the performance of fast algorithm deteriorates in

Estimated CFO and error (Hz)

1000 1000
Estimated Estimated
Real Real fading channel with low SNR. In fading channel, different
500 500 Absolute Error
Absolute Error
parts of the pilots suffer from totally different channel, so
0 0
it is unreasonable to consider them together. We can divide
500 500 pilot signal into several segments and estimate CFO for each
1000 1000
segment.
1000 500 0 500 1000 1000 500 0 500 1000
Real Frequency offset (Hz) Real Frequency offset (Hz)
Improved Fast Algorithm (L=256) Improved Fast Algorithm (L=32)
Algorithm 2 Improved Fast Algorithm
Estimated CFO and error (Hz)

Estimated CFO and error (Hz)

1000 1000
Estimated Estimated

500
Real
500
Real
1: Upon receiving P with length N , divide it into Nseg
Absolute Error Absolute Error

0 0
segments, each of L points.
2: for each i [1 : Nseg ] do
500 500
3: Calculate m according
PL1 to (21).
2jik
1000
1000 500 0 500 1000
1000
1000 500 0 500 1000 4: Calculate (i) = k=1 1 k e
L
Real Frequency offset (Hz) Real Frequency offset (Hz)
5: Estimate CFO i according to (25).
Fig. 1. Rayleigh channel with SNR = 20dB, 1000 Hz f 1000 Hz. 6: end for
Comparison of pseudoinverse based algorithm, fast algorithm and improved 7: Take average over estimations of all segments =
fast algorithm. 1
PNseg
Nseg i i .

where Pk0 = P01,k is the ks element in the first row of P0 . It

is the form of DFT. V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
Solve (18) c 0 can be expressed as In this section we give some simulation results. The sim-
0 0 0 ulation based on protocols of LTE 3GPP, in which Fs =
c0 = P P = UH 1 UP (22)
30.72 106 Hz, Nc = 2048, f = 15000 Hz. The time
0
It is easy to get for is a diagonal matrix. As P = 1 interval between two pilots is 0.5 ms.
UH 1 U, we have The most widely used method is auto-correlation based
N 1 N 1 algorithm [6][9], which is robust, accuracy and simple in
0 X X 2jk

pm,n = 1
k um,k uk,n = 1
k e
N (nm) (23) calculation. We introduce this method here so that we can
k=1 k=1 compare it with our method later. The estimator is given by
Substitution into (22) we get 1 XN

N 1
f = arg{ R(i)} (26)
X 0

Ts (N + 1)
cl = pl,i P 0 (i) i=1

1
PL1
where R(i) = L1 k=i P (k)P (k i) and N is the
i=0
N 1 N 1
X X 2jk maximum delay.
= 1
k e
N (il) P 0 (i) The accuracy of estimation depends on the delay N in
i=0 k=0
(26). Greater value improves estimator performance. However,
N 1 N 1
X X 2jk auto-correlation based algorithm bases on the assumption that
= 0 P (i) 1
k e
N (il)
during the time interval of the two pilots Ts (N + 1) the
i=0 k=0
PN 1 1 2jik channel is time-invariant. This implies the coherence time
Denote the DFT of by (i) = k=1 k e
N , we 1
k Tc 1/4fD max
should be greater than the time interval
have PN 1 0 between the two pilots. For channel with large Doppler shift,
c1 c1 P (i)[(i 2) (i)] auto-correlation based algorithm is invalid and the estimation
= i=0
PN 1 0 (24)
c0 i=0 P (i)(i 1)
error of auto-correlation based algorithm is beyond tolerance.
In AWGN channel, auto-correlation based algorithm outper-
So we have the following theorem.
forms our methods as illustrated in Figure 2. It outperforms
Theorem 3: As the effective frequency offset 0, the
our method more than 25 dB, and its accuracy increases as
following approximation holds.
the SNR grows. Simulations show that our estimations fail to
PN 1 0
P (i)[(i 2) (i)] converge to the true CFO, but with a fixed gaps independent
Real{ i=0PN 1 } (25) to CFO. For pseudoinverse based algorithm, the gap is about
2 i=0 P 0 (i)(i 1)
7 Hz, fast algorithm 2 Hz, and improved fast algorithm 25 Hz.
2jik
PN 1
where (i) = k=1 1 k e
N is the DFT of 1k , k is In high Doppler shift scenario, it is impossible to estimate
the eigenvalue of P0 . the frequency offset according to a single instance and long
Interestingly to note that (25) shares the same form with term statistic should be used. In Clark model, the spectrum of
(13). It is easy to introduce a fast algorithm according to Doppler spread is symmetrical, which is known as Jake spec-
Theorem 3. trum. We expect that the long term averaging will eliminate
 1 1
10 10
Auto correlation based algorithm Auto correlation based algorithm
Pseudoinverse based algorithm Pseudoinverse based algorithm
Fast algorithm Fast Algorithm
Improved fast algorithm (L=32) Improved fast Algorithm (L=32)
2
10
Error Rate

Error Rate
3
10 2
10

4
10

5
10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 3
SNR (dB) 10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
SNR (dB)
Fig. 2. Simulation for AWGN with SNR = 0 30 (dB). 1000 times simu-
lation for each SNR case. The estimation error  = ( 1000
P
i=1 |
i |)/1000, Fig. 4. Simulation for Rayleigh channel with SNR = 0 30 (dB),
where is the true CFO and i is the ith estimation. The performance of max
fdoppler = 500 Hz and the real CFO is 300 Hz. The CFO is estimated
auto-correlation based algorithm is the best. by long term averaging, i.e., 100 pairs of pilots.

400
Improved fast Algorithm (L=32) R EFERENCES
Auto correlation based algorithm
Mean of Improved fast Algorithm (L=32)
350
Mean of Auto correlation based algorithm
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Estimated Frequency offset (Hz)

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PM multiplexing frequency offset correction, IEEE Trans.
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i |,
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