A Very Efficient Time and Frequency
Synchronization Method for OFDM Systems
Operating in AWGN Channels
Lela Nasraoui, Lela Najjar Atallah
TECHTRA Laboratory
Higher School of Communications
University of 7 November at Carthage, Tunisia.
nasraoui.leila@gmail.com, leila.najjar@supcom.rnu.tn
Abstract In this paper, we propose an efficient scheme using a
new single-symbol preamble structure for OFDM data-aided
synchronization. The preamble symbol is constituted of two
successive equal-duration sub-symbols, the second one of which is
a differentially encoded version of the first one, using an
adequately designed precoding sequence. This structure leads to
almost perfect channel autocorrelation profile with sharp in-
phase peak and zero out-of-phase correlation. For comparison,
we review some previous methods also based on data-aided
synchronization for OFDM systems. We here explore the
performance of the new method in the case of the AWGN
channel. The performance is presented in terms of correct frame
start detection rate and estimators variance for time estimation.
For fractional frequency offset estimation, the performance is
evaluated in terms of mean squared error. The obtained results
prove that the accuracy of the frame start detection and the
fractional frequency offset estimation are greatly enhanced, even
at very low SNRs. We show that compared to the best
benchmark, gains of about 5 dB and 20 dB are achieved for
timing precision of one sample and of one tenth of a sample,
respectively. We also show that for a target correct detection rate
of 95%, our approach provides more than 17 dB gain with
respect to the best benchmark. Although we concentrate here on
OFDM, the proposed approach can be applied to other systems
such as TDMA or CDMA.
Keywords- OFDM; preamble-based synchronization; precoding;
preferred pair of m-sequence; time synchronization; frequency
synchronization; preamble sequence design
I. INTRODUCTION
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
systems have improved both wired and wireless
communications thanks to their high data rate transmission and
robustness to channels imperfections. A misalignment between
the sent symbol start and the demodulated one (timing error)
can introduce Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI). The use of a
Cyclic Prefix (CP) longer than the channel delay spread renders
the OFDM systems robust to timing offsets lower than the CP
excess length. As the CP length is generally chosen to sensibly
equal the channel delay spread, the timing offset must be
accurately recovered to avoid the ISI. A frequency error results
in Inter-Carrier Interference (ICI) that destroys the
978-1-4244-8840-7/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE
Mohamed Siala
MEDIATRON Laboratory
Higher School of Communications
University of 7 November at Carthage, Tunisia.
mohamed.siala@supcom.rnu.tn
orthogonality between sub-carriers. The lower is the sub-
carriers spacing, the more is the sensitivity to frequency offsets.
The timing and frequency offsets deteriorate modulation
performance. To face those limitations, many approaches have
been proposed in the literature to estimate the time and/or the
frequency offsets. Some of them exploit the redundancy in the
CP, as the work of Van de Beek in [3], for blind
synchronization, which is more suited to continuous flow
transmission, such as streaming video. Others use a preamble
before OFDM symbols data transmission, as in [1] and [2].
Those approaches, known as data-aided synchronization
methods, cost in terms of bandwidth but are generally more
efficient than blind ones, especially for bursty packet traffic. In
between, we have semi-blind synchronization that uses the
redundancy in the CP in addition to pilot symbols sent regularly
for channel estimation, as presented in [4].
This paper addresses the problem of data-aided
synchronization. It is organized as follows. Section II briefly
defines the OFDM signal. In section III, we study some existing
synchronization methods presented in [1] and [2], with the
intention of using them as benchmarks. Then, we describe our
synchronization approach, in section IV. Simulations results
and discussions are given, in section V. Finally, our conclusions
and perspectives are provided in Section VI.
II. OFDM SIGNAL
The OFDM signal is generated by modulating equally
spaced sub-carriers, using QAM or PSK complex data symbols.
These symbols denoted ck , n are indexed by the OFDM symbol
number k and the sub-carrier number n (n = 0,1,..., N u 1).
the transmitted baseband OFDM signal after pulse shape
filtering is given by
Nu
s ( t ) = ck , n e , t [ kT , ( k + 1)T ],
j 2 f n ( t kT Tg )
(1)
n =0
th
where N u is the number of sub-carriers. The n sub-carrier
frequency is denoted by f n = n / Tu , where Tu is the length of
the OFDM symbol useful part. The considered guard interval where a is a Pseudo Noise (PN) sequence of length
extension consists in appending a copy of the last Tg period of L = N u / 2 . To estimate the frame start, Schmidl and Cox take
the OFDM symbol as a prefix. T = Tu + Tg denotes the whole the maximum point d opt of the timing metric given by
OFDM symbol duration. The OFDM signal discrete
2
formulation with sampling period Ts = Tu / N u coincides, for P1 ( d )
M 1 (d ) = (4)
the k OFDM symbol, with the N u points Inverse Fast Fourier
th ( R1 ( d )) 2
Transform (IFFT) of {c } .k ,n
The added CP of length where is the time index corresponding to the first sample in a
sliding window of N u samples,
N g = Tg / Ts is here directly generated in the time domain (no
th
IFFT is used). The k transmitted samples of the OFDM
symbol including CP are given by L 1

j 2 ( l N g )
P1 (d ) = rd*+ m rd + m + L , (5)
N u 1 m =0
skN + l = c k ,n
e
Nu
, l [ 0, N 1] , k Z, (2)
and
n=0
L 1
where N = N u + N g . R1 ( d ) = rd + m + L .
2
(6)
m =1
Due to miss-synchronized transmitter and receiver
oscillators, the received signal is affected by a frequency offset, The main drawback of this approach is that the metric
the normalized version of which, with respect to sub-carriers exhibits a plateau which has a length equal to that of the guard
spacing, is denoted by . Moreover, the received signal has a interval minus the length of the channel impulse response. Due
time offset, the normalized version of which, with respect to the to noise, this plateau leads to some uncertainty as to the start of
sampling period is denoted by . The channel introduces a the frame and results in a large TO estimation variance. To
alleviate this drawback, Schmidl and Cox proposed an
zero-mean Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) k averaging method, where two points to the left and right in the
(k Z). The received sample expression is then time domain, which are exactly within 90% of the maximum
value, are first found. Then, the timing estimate is taken as the
j 2
k
middle of those two points. In this way, the estimate is
sk + k .
Nu
rk = e (3) guaranteed to fall within the plateau.

In the following, we consider a class of preamble-based The metric in (5) is also used for frequency synchronization
synchronization methods that use a preamble, with specific to detect the FFO by
structure for synchronization aims. This preamble is sent either 1
periodically, to track the synchronization parameters, in the  = (( P1 ( d opt )) (7)
case of continuous stream traffic or at the start of a Tu
transmission, to detect the beginning of emission, in the case of
bursty packet traffic. where ( denotes the phase operator.

III. SURVEY ON PREAMBLE-BASED SYNCHRONIZATION To further reduce the uncertainty due to the timing metric
METHODS plateau, two approaches have been proposed by Minn et al. in
[2]. These methods are presented hereafter.
This section introduces three methods applied for
preamble-based OFDM synchronization. The first method, B. Minns Sliding Window Method
proposed by Schmidl and Cox, suggests two estimators, for
This method uses the same preamble as the method
Time Offset (TO) and Fractional Frequency Offset (FFO) [1]. presented in subsection A. Two aspects have been changed:
The second, known as Minns Sliding Window Method, is a
modified version of the previous TO estimator [2]. Finally, the The first modification consists in computing the
third method, named Minns Training Symbol Method, energy R1 ( d ) over the whole symbol, rather than over
presents a different TO estimator using a different preamble the second half. This leads to
structure [2].
1
1N
r
u
A. Schmidl and Cox method R2 (d ) =
2
. (8)
d +m
Schmidl and Cox have presented in [1] a robust frequency 2 m =0
and timing synchronization algorithm. The preamble is
composed of two symbols. Only the first is used for TO and The second modification is averaging the metric over a
FFO estimation. This symbol is designed to be window of length N g + 1 instead of the 90% averaging

Ps &c = [ a , a ] , approach presented above.

The modified timing metric is given by

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 1 0 It is shown that the plateau effect disappears in Minns
M 2 (d ) =
Ng +1
M f
( d + k ), (9) methods. Nevertheless, the obtained correlation peak is not
k = Ng sharp leading to reduced robustness to noise. There is one
maximum point defining the frame start. In this case, it
where th
coincides with the 563 sample as can be seen in the figure,
2 th
P1 ( d ) since the preamble is sent at the 460 sample before which
Mf = 2
. (10) random data were sent.
( R2 ( d ))
IV. PROPOSED SYNCHRONIZATION METHOD
C. Minns Training Symbol Method
Like the method presented in [5], we here use a differential
This approach uses a different preamble structure, designed coding in the time domain for the preamble design. We focus
as on the choice of the sub-sequences involved in the preamble
construction.
PMinn = [ b, b, b, b ] ,
A. Proposed preamble structure
where b is a sub-sequence of L = N u / 4 samples generated by The proposed preamble is composed of a single time-
domain OFDM symbol. Abstraction made of the CP, this
taking the L = N u / 4 points IFFT of a PN sequence of
preamble is constructed as the concatenation of two equal-
length L. length sub-sequences s1 and s2 . The second sub-sequence s2 is
The time metric M 3 has the same form as in (4), with obtained by differentially modulating the first sub-sequence s1
functions P1 and R1 modified respectively by P3 and R3 given using a precoding sequence p as follows
by
N um
1 L 1
s2, k = s1, k pk , k = 0,1,..., Lm 1 = 1, (13)
P3 ( d ) = r *
r , (11)
2
d + 2 kL + m d + 2 kL + m + L
k =0 m=0
where N um is the length of the preamble (except the CP), s2,k and
and
s1,k are respectively the k th samples of sequences s1 and s2
1 L 1
R3 (d ) = rd + 2 Lk + m + L .
th
2
(12) and pk is the k sample of the precoding sequence. Each of
these sequences ( s1 , s2 , and p) have a length of Lm = 2 1
k =0 m =0 q

Illustrative curves representing the metrics of Schmidl and (whereq ` ). The concatenated preamble samples form the
Coxs method and Minns methods are shown in Fig. 1. The
Sliding Window Method of Minn is referenced as Method A, sequence s = [ s1 , s2 ] = [ s1 , s1 : p ] where : denotes the
and the Training Symbol Method of Minn is referenced as element-wise product operator. To observe the OFDM symbol
Method B. We here consider the case of an OFDM signal structure, a CP of length N gm = N g + N u N um is added to
with N u = 1024 sub-carriers, with a guard interval of
to keep the total OFDM symbol length of N .
N g = 102 samples, and a normalized carrier frequency offset
The choice of the sequences p and s1 is of utmost
= 12.4 sub-carriers spacing, and an ideal channel case (no
noise). importance basic step. These sequences should be meticulously
chosen to have an important correlation property, that will be
1 Proposed method exploited later when calculating the metric. M-sequences are
Schmidl & Cox
Minn Method A
well known for having specific correlation properties in terms
0.9
Minn Method B of minimizing the maximum value of the out-of-phase
0.8 autocorrelation. The smaller is the out-of-phase autocorrelation
0.7 of the chosen sequence, the more accurate is the timing offset
Metric Mi, i=1,2,3,4

0.6
estimation. Thus, they are adequate for synchronization. Hence,
in this work two m-sequences are applied to generate the time
0.5
domain preamble ( s1 and p ). For a judicious choice, we use a
0.4
preferred pair of m-sequences for which the above mentioned
0.3
correlation property is better verified than arbitrary chosen sub-
0.2 sequences.
0.1
B. Timing offset estimation
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 To detect the frame start, the idea is to search for two
Time (in samples) strongly correlated symbol halves. This is realized by searching
Figure 1. Timing metrics under noiseless conditions. the maximum of metric

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 2 performance is evaluated over an SNR range from 10 dB to
P4 ( d )
M4 = , (14) 25 dB which encompasses all practical operating values.
( R4 ( d )) 2
where B. Timing estimation performance
Lm 1

P4 = r *
r
d + m d + m + Lm
*
p m, (15) The timing estimator performance is evaluated in terms of
rate of correct detection and estimator variance. The five cases
m =1
presented in [2] (I-Schmidl and Cox, II-Schmidl and Cox using
and (8), III-Minns Sliding Window Method, IV-Minns Training
Lm 1 Symbol Method, and V-Minns Training Symbol Method using
r
2
R4 (d ) = . (16) (8)) are compared to the proposed method.
d + m + Lm
m =0 Fig. 2 shows the rate of correct detection for all methods. As
The correlation property of the chosen sequences ensures can be noticed, beyond an SNR of -5 dB, the proposed method
that the proposed timing metric has its peak value at the correct provides a correct start frame detection with rate 1. At very low
SNR (less than 0 dB) method III outperforms the others. At
symbol starting point. The frame start corresponds to the
higher SNR, the detection rates of methods IV and V are better
sample index d opt that maximizes the metric in (14). Fig .1 than III, as the metric peak can be more easily distinguished. In
shows that this metric exhibits an almost perfect channel all cases, methods I and II give the worst detection rates due to
autocorrelation profile with a sharp peak at the correct frame the plateau effect. A gain of about 15 dB is achieved by the
proposed method with respect to the best benchmark (method
start, using a system of N um = 1022 samples and a guard V) for a target correct detection rate of 90%. This gain goes to
interval of N gm = 104 samples. 17 dB for a target of 95%.

C. Fractional frequency offset estimation

The correlation function in (15) used for timing 1

synchronization is also exploited to calculate the FFO. 0.9

Reaching the pick, the phase of P4 is . Hence, to enhance
0.8
estimation robustness to noise, we evaluate the phase of at
the optimum timing d opt such that
Rate of Correct Detection

0.7
Schmidl & Cox (I)
1 Schmidl & Cox modified (II)
= ( ( P4 ( d opt )). (17)
0.6
Minn Method A (III)
0.5 Minn Method B (IV)
Minn Method
Minn B modified
B modified (V) (V)
This equation provides a detection range of 1 in terms of sub- 0.4 Proposed method

carriers spacing due to the phase of P4 , being unambiguously 0.3

determined for < ( ( P4 ( d opt )) . 0.2

V. SIMULATIONS AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION 0.1

0
The performance of the proposed synchronization method -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25

and the methods presented in section III are investigated by SNR (dB)

Matlab simulations. Figure 2. Rate of correct detection of symbol timing.

A. Simulations parameters
To be fair on comparing our method to the other benchmark
Fig. 3 shows the variance of the TO estimator. At a very
methods exposed above, we have approximately chosen the
low SNR (around -10 dB) the performance of all the considered
same system parameters. Thus, we have used a preferred pair of
9
methods are comparable. For SNR higher than -5 dB, the
m-sequences of length N um = 2 1 = 511, and the guard proposed method leads to a variance equal to 0 (for 5.106 trials).
This is coherent with the correct start frame detection rate
interval N gm is set to 104 samples. For the other methods N u is
shown before (Fig. 2). Other estimators variances go on
chosen equal to 1024 and the guard interval length N g is equal declining. Methods I and II show a floor, while methods IV and
V keep on decreasing. Note that methods using (8) have smaller
to 102 samples. The guard interval of the proposed method has variance. For a precision of one sample (var( ) = 1), a gain of
two samples more than the others to keep the same OFDM
about 5 dB is obtained compared to the best benchmark
symbol length N = 1126 samples. The carrier frequency offset
(method V). This gain increases to 20 dB for a precision of one
is set to 12.4 sub-carriers spacing. We treat the case of an
tenth of a sample ( (var( ) = 10 ) ). Under -6 dB, the proposed
2
4
AWGN channel. For all simulations, between 10 and
method leads to slightly worse performance. We can think of
5.106 trials are run, depending on the case at hand. The applying an hybrid method where the best performing
technique, namely method B of Minn in this SNR range.

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However, since there is no universal structure for the preamble,
which is compliant with both methods, it is not possible to use
any hybrid technique.
C. Fractional frequency offset estimation performance
For fractional frequency estimation, we set the normalized
FFO to 0.4 sub-carriers spacing. To evaluate its estimation
performance, we use the criterion of Mean Squared Error
(MSE). The obtained simulation results are presented in Fig .4.
As a second step in our evaluation process, we examine, for
each method, the degradation effect of a time estimation error
on FFO estimation performance. We simulate (5) and (15) for
two time values: The perfect (correct) timing value and the
Simulations results showed that the proposed method gives
very accurate estimates of time and fractional frequency offsets.
We have proved that, compared to the best benchmark, a gain
of about 20 dB is achieved for timing precision of one tenth of a
sample. For a target correct detection rate of 95%, our approach
provides more than 17 dB gain, with respect to the best
benchmark.
Ongoing work aims to explore the proposed scheme
performance in the case of multipath channels and to extend it
to include integer frequency offset estimation.
0
10
Schmidl & Cox (I)

timing value that maximizes the metrics, respectively given by -1

Schmidl & Cox (II)
Proposed Method (I)
(4) and (14), for Schmidl and Cox and the proposed scheme. In 10
Proposed Method (II)
Fig .4, they are annotated respectively by I (correct) and II
(estimated). Using the correct symbol timing, the proposed 10
-2

method gives better results when the SNR is less than -5 dB.
Beyond this value, performance for true and estimated frame

MSE()
-3
10
starting point are similar. The FFO estimation is robust to
small timing offsets. For our method, this is obtained thanks to -4
10
its sharp metric around the true frame start allowing a correct
timing acquisition. For the method of Schmidl and Cox, the -5
FFO estimation is insensitive to timing errors whenever the 10

estimated timing lies within the plateau. We expect a

degradation in multipath operation mode because the plateau is 10
-6

shortened by the dispersive nature of the channel. Compared to -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25

Schmidl and Coxs method, the proposed one gives lower SNR (dB)

MSE.
Figure 4. MSE of FFO for perfect and estimated symbol timing.

5
10 REFERENCES
[1] T.M. Schmidl, D. Cox, Robust frequency and timing synchronisation in
4
10 OFDM, IEEE Trans. on Comm., vol. 45, Dec. 1997, pp. 1613-1621.
[2] H. Minn, M. Zeng, V. K. Bhargava, On timing offset estimation for
3
10 OFDM systems, IEEE Comm. Letters, vol.4, no. 7, July 2000, pp. 242-
Schmidl & Cox (I)
244.
2
10
Schmidl & Cox modified (II) [3] J.-J. van de Beek, M. Sandell, M. Isaksson, and P. Brjesson, Low
Minn Method A (III) complex frame synchronization in OFDM systems, in Proc. ICUPC,
Minn Method B (IV) Nov. 610, 1995, pp. 982986.
var()

1
10 Minn Method B modified (V) [4] D. Landstrm, S. K. Wilson, J. J. van de Beek, P. dling, and P. O.
Proposed method Brjesson, Symbol time offset estimation in coherent OFDM systems,
in Proc. Int. Conf. on Communications, Vancouver, BC, Canada,
0
10
June1999, pp. 500505.
-1
10 [5] L. Atallah, M. Siala, A New scheme for preamble detection and
frequency acquisition in OFDM systems, in Proc. ICECS, Hammamet,
-2 Tunisia, December 2009.
10

-3
10
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
SNR (dB)

Figure 3. Timing offset estimator variance.

VI. CONCLUSION
A data-aided time and frequency synchronization method
for OFDM systems has been presented. It is based on a new
preamble structure that uses one symbol whose two halves are
related by a differential encoding. A judicious design of the
involved sequences guarantees a robust metric shape which
enhances the frame start detection capacity and the FFO
estimation accuracy.

978-1-4244-8840-7/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE