Joint Estimation of Frequency Offset and Channel Frequency Response Using EM Algorithm for OFDM Systems

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems are very sensitive to the frequency offset of the local oscillator at the receiver while the symbol timing offset can be absorbed in the guard interval. For the same reason, estimation of the frequency characteristics, needed for OFDM to be adapted to the frequency selective fading, can only be carried out conventionally after the frequency offset has been compensated. And accurate estimation of large frequency offset certainly requires high precision estimate of the frequency characteristics. In this paper, we propose a new joint estimation method of the frequency offset and the channel frequency response using an Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm for OFDM systems. The proposed algorithm overcomes the limitation of the thus far proposed algorithm. By computer simulations, we show the proposed algorithm provides estimation accuracy close to its lower bound in a wide range of the frequency offset. key words: OFDM systems, frequency offset, channel frequency responses, EM algorithm, Newton algorithm