Maximum-likelihood CFO Estimation for MIMO/OFDM Uplink Using
Su perimposed Trainings
Han Zhang
Dept. of Physics & Telecommunication Engineering
South China Normal University
Guangzhou, P. R. China
zhanghan@scnu.edu.cn
Abstract-We address the problem of superimposed training
(ST)-based maximum-likelihood (ML) carrier frequency offset
(CFO) estimation for multiple-input multiple-output/
orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO/OFDM)
systems. With the specifically designed training signals, the
effect due to the unknown information sequence is fully
cancelled in time-domain and, the CFO estimation
performed by using one pilot sample of each distinct user. We
also present a performance analysis of the CFOs estimation
and derive an approximated closed-form CFO estimation
variance. It is shown that with the judiciously designed
training sequences, the performance of the proposed ST based­
ML CFO estimator approaches the Cramer-Rao bound for
high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) scenario. Simulation results
illustrate the merits of the proposed approach.
Keywords- Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
(OFDM); Carrier frequency offset (CFO); Superimposed
training; Maximum-likelihood (ML) estimation.
I. INTRODUCTION
The combination of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output
(MIMO) antennas and Orthogonal Frequency-Division
Multiplexing (OFDM) can achieve a lower error rate and/or
enable high-capacity wireless communication systems by
flexibly exploiting diversity gain and/or the spatial
multiplexing gains. Such a system, however, exhibits
sensitive to carrier frequency offsets (CFOs) between the
transmitters and the receivers due to oscillator instabilities
and/or Doppler shifts. The deviation in the carrier frequency
will damage the orthogonality among subcarriers and hence
give rise to inter-carrier interference which degrades the
system performance severely [1].
Frequency synchronization in MIMO/OFDM systems,
compared with that of single-input single-output (SISO)
systems, is more crucial and challenging since different
CFOs of individual user needs to be tracked simultaneously
at the base station (BS). Although there have been quite a
few CFO estimation methods for OFDM systems [1]-[6],
most of them are only applicable to SISO scenario [2]-[4].
Most of the researches of CFO estimation for the MIMO­
OFDM assume that only single-frequency offset exists
between the transmitter and the receiver [5]-[6], which is
unrealistic in most cases for the uplink transmission.
A number of approaches have dealt with CFO estimation
978-1-4244-5849-3/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
Xianhua Dai
Dept. oflnformation Science & Technology
SUN Vat-sen University
Guangzhou, P. R. China
issdxh@zsu.edu.cn
in a MIMO-OFDM setup [7]-[12]. According to whether the
CFO estimators is based on the training sequences or not,
they can be clarified as blind ones [7]-[9] and training-based
ones [10]-[12]. The maximum likelihood (ML) estimators
are proposed in [7] and [8] for the channels and CFOs of the
MIMO uplink, but flat-fading channel models are assumed.
is
In [9], a blind kurtosis-based CFO estimator for MIMO­
OFDM was developed. For training-based CFO estimators,
the overviews concerning the problem of training design for
joint CFOs and channel estimation in single carrier SISO
and MIMO systems have been addressed in [10]-[11] by
minimizing the worst case as Cramer-Rao bounds (CRBs).
In [12], a two-step CFO estimator with the optimal training
sequence design was proposed for MIMO-OFDM systems.
Although the above training-based CFOs estimates [10]-[12]
are generally reliable, extra bandwidth or time slot is
required for transmitting known pilots.
In recent years, an alternative approach, referred to as
superimposed training (ST), has been widely studied in
[13]-[17]. In the idea of ST, additional periodic training
sequences are arithmetically added to information sequence
in time- or frequency-domain prior to transmission, and thus
enable higher transmission efficiency. In this scheme,
however, the information sequences are viewed as additive
interference to CFO and channel estimation. In the latest
contributions, data dependent ST (DDST) [15J represents a
major improvement on the concept of ST ([13] [14]) for
channel estimation, where the information interference to
channel estimation can be effectively removed by adding a
special data-dependent sequence. Later on, DDST based
CFO and channel estimation for SISO block transmission, is
presented by [17].
Rather than that of the DDST based approach [17],
where multiple pilot samples are exploited for frequency
tracking, in this paper, we propose a novel ST based CFOs
estimator for MIMO/OFDM systems, where only a single
pilot sample of each distinct user is used for ML fine
frequency tracking. Meanwhile, the information interference
to CFOs estimation is fully cancelled in time-domain by
distorting certain data slots associate with the pilot samples.
With the specifically designed ST, the ML estimation
process is greatly simplified since no approximation on the
log-likelihood function needs to be made and, a simple
expression for the estimator solution can be obtained
directly. Furthermore, a closed-from expression of CFOs
217
estimation variance is derived. It is demonstrated by channel taps h�])(t ) remain constant in each block and thus
theoretical analysis and simulations that the estimation neglect the variable t for simplicity.
variance approaches CRB for high signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) scenario, and can be further improved by increasing III. PROPOSED ML FREQUENCY OFFSET ESTIMATION
the training power allocation. USING SUPERIMPOSED TRAINING
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II Unlike the existing ML estimators [7] [8J, where certain
presents the system models. An ML estimation based on approximations are needed for the problem of local extrema,
specifically designed ST sequences is derived in Section III, we propose a new ST-based ML approach in this section.
and the corresponding mean square error (MSE) with With the specifically designed training signals, the ML
theoretical analysis is derived accordingly. Section IV estimation process can be greatly simplified, while
reports on some simulation experiments carried out in order preserving identical performance to the CRB for high SNR
to test the validity of theoretic results, and we conclude the scenario.
paper with Section V.
Notations: The letter t represents the time-domain A. Sup erimpos ed Training Design
variable, and k is the frequency-domain variable. Bold In ST-based approaches [13]-[I7J, the pilot symbols are
letters denote the matrices and column-vectors, and the super-imposed to the information sequences as
superscripts [of and [ t represent the transpose and
Xn + Pn
= Sn ,n= I,··N
0

conjugate transpose operations, respectively. (4)

II. MIMOIOFDM UPLINK MODEL whereSn=[sn O( ), ..sn(B�IW andPn = [Pn(O )" ' Pn(B -:- I )f
are the B x 1 information and pilot vectors, respectIvely.
Consider a multiuser MIMO�OFDM uplink system with Compared with the FDM/TDM schemes [1OJ -[I2J , ST
N transmitters (or mobile users) that share the same time requires no additional time-slot (or bandwidth) for transmit­
and frequency band, and a receive array of M receive ting the known pilots, and thus offers a higher data rate.
antennas at the base station. At transmit terminals, an Substituting (4) into (3), we have
inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) is used as a modulator.
N
The modulated outputs are given by
y(m)= "" E n
.L..J m) n
H(n p (5)
n
X =[xn O ( ), ...xn (t), ..xn(B � I )r =F -1 nX ,n=!
� v

n = I,··N (1) desired signal for CFO(s) estimation interference to CFO(s) estimation

where B is OFDM symbol-size, Xn=[xnO ( ),··xn(k)··· From (5), we clearly see that the information sequences,
xn (B�I)t is the transmitted data symbol of the nth transmit
antenna, F - I'IS the IFFT matnx . h [F -1]k.t= e-.j2Jrkt/B
in addition to AWGN, exhibit as additive interference to
. WIt CFO(s) estimation. This is a common problem for the
and l = -1. Then, Xnis concatenated by a cyclic-prefix existing ST-based approaches [13]-[14]. On the other hand,
(CP) of length L' ( L' is larger than or at least equal to the in MIMOI OFDM system where the received signals in (5)
maximum channel delay L to cancel the inter-symbol are overlapped across different users, the training signals of
interference), propagated through the respective channels. the desired user can not be distinguished from others' for
With a carrier frequency mismatch between the user n and estimating the CFO(s).
receiver, the corresponding normalized frequency offset to In this paper, we adopt the following training scheme to
subcarrier spacing is denoted as In,n=1,'" N . At receiver, circumvent the abovementioned problems, i. e.
the received signals of m th receive antenna, discarding CP
and stacking the received signals ylm)(t ) , can be written in a Pn(t )= .JE;J (t � tn),n =1,···N (6)
vector-form as
y(m)= [ y(m)(0)"" y(m)(t),'" y(m)(B�1)r where E is the power of the pilots, tn =B� (N �n + I)L�1
is referie d to as the pilot sample. Explicitly, the training
N
m) n X + V(m)m=1' . .. M
signals of various users are in fact a J -sequence at the time
= ""
L...J H(n
En (2)
sample t=t n' n=1 . . . N that follows a disjoint set with an
nl=:
interval L. Therefore, using the specifically designed
and the received signal y(m)(t) in (2) is given by training sequence (6), the training signals of various users
L -I
ylm)(t )=Le-j2"f,t/BLh�])(t )xn(t�I)+v(m)(t )
N
are decoupled. Compared to AWGN, however, the
(3)
n1� 1�0
information interference to CFO(s) and (or) channel
estimation could be more severely, especially for high SNR
where E n is the B x B diagonal matrix that composed of CFO
e1 ements, WI'th d'lag::'n {-}= [e- )2"/"xO /B ,"', e-)2"/,,( B-I)/B]T , scenario. Accordingly, the objective of this subsection is to
H(m) is the BxB matrix with the first column given
mitigate the interference due to the information
clusters sn(tn �L+I),··sn(tn +L�I),n = I,··N prior to
by"[h��) (t)," .h�1_ (t), 0lx B-L f with h�])(t ) 1= 0,'" L�1 be� ng
1 transmission.
Motivated by [ I5J and [17J, we propose to distort the
time-domain impulse response vector of the propagatmg
channel from the n th transmit to the m th receive antenna.
information clusters being viewed as interference with the
v(m)(t) is the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) with distortion component given by
variance 0";. Similar to [2J -[I2J [17], we assume that the

218
 (7)

where <I> is a B xB matrix with diagonal elements

rJ> (tn ± 1) 1 0,··· L -1,n 1,···N are ones and the remaining
= =

entries are zeros. In this case, the introduced distortion in (7) However, it is difficult to derive the closed-form expression
corresponds to simply remove the information clusters of the mean square error (MSE) by (11) directly.
sn (tn- L+1),.·· sn (tn+ L -1),n=1,.··N . The transmitted Considering the approximation of arctan-1 x '" x when x is
signals (4), prior to transmission, can be thus rewritten by small, however, (11) can be rewritten by
- ,r/Bucm)(tn)/yCm)(tn)}
B 1m {e J2ll"J,,,
n- n
A

I I '" 2mn Re e-J21Cf"t , /BuCm)(tn)/yCm)(tn)}

,
{
where I B denotes the identity matrix of size B . As will be
shown in Section III-B, using the distorted signals (8), CFO B ,t/BUCm) (tn)Vcm) (tn)) H }
1m { e -J2 ll"f",
estimation on the pilot sample Pn (tn) could be performed ,/BUcm) (tn)VCm) (tn)) H }
27(tn Re{I UCm)(tn)12 +e -J21Cf"t ,
=

without any information interference, which is similar to

that of the FDM/TDM training-based schemes [10]-[12]. t/BUcm) t( n) ( VCm) t( n)) H - e J21Cr"t
B e-J21Cf",, ,,/B (UCm) t( n))H VCm) (tn)
4j7(tnRe{1 Ucm) t( n)12 +e-J27rf", ,t/BUCm) (tn) ( Vc m) t( n))ff }
Differently, the proposed ST-based approach requires no
additional time-slots (or bandwidth) for transmitting the
known pilots, and thus offers a higher data rate. On the other (12)
hand, the introduced distortion, however, may give rise to For high SNR environment, (12) can be approximated as
an error floor on symbol detection at receiver. One of the
simple ways to circumvent the distortion to symbol recovery In - in'"
B e-J27rf"t
, /BuCm)(tJ (vcm)t( n)t _e J2ll"f"t
, , /B (ucm)(tJ)H v(m)(tJ
,
may refer to the decision-directed iterative symbol detector
[15] (details will not be addressed here since it is beyond the
scope of this paper). 4 j7rtn I uCm)(tJ 21

B. Maximum Like lihood CFO Estimator (13)

Following by (13), the MSE of the CFO estimator is given
With the specifically designed training signals (6)-(8),
by
the carrier frequency offsets of MIMO/OFDM system are in
fact incorporated into a single vector, which allows us to use MSE{llln -!n112} '"
the single user ST-based approach in estimating the CFO(s)
B2
of distinguished users. Accordingly, we have the log­ {lle -J2ll"f",
,t/Buc m) (tn) (vCm) (tn)) H _
likelihood function corresponding to the pilot sample 167(2t; I uCm)(tn)14
e J27rf"t
,/B (U(m) (tn))ff VCm) t( n)1 12
, }

where ul m)(t.) ji"";L�:� h��)et.)§e -I) is a noise-free vector.

=
= B2! vcm)(t,J!
2
87(2t; I UCm)(tn) 12 ,
j [,/B(ucm)et ))2( evlm\tn)t)2
l_Re e-J4ff/,,t
,
: ,
J j
To find the ML estimation of b , we differentiate (9) with �

respect to b by setting the second term of (9) to zero i:e. B2

e-J27rJ,,,,
r/B =yCm)(tn) /ucm)(tn) ' Correspondmgly,
. we readIly ' n = I,.··N (14)
obtain the CFO of the n-th user � 87( t;PNR (tJ
2
where we have used the approximation 1- rp '" 1 for high
SNR scenario, PNR t( n)= I uCm)t( n) 12/1 VCm)t( n) 21 is the pilot­
to-noise ratio (PNR) at the pilot sample . In the light of
tn
the expression ( 1 4), we see that the CFO estimation
v a r i a n c e is d i r e c t l y p r o p o r t i o n a l to t h e r a t i o of
where Re {} and 1m {} denote the real and imaginary part. N 2/t;PNR (tn) . For a given system of fixed sub-carrier B,
Using the specifically designed ST, the channel impulse
the MSE of CFO estimation can be improved by increasing
response (CIR) h��),1=0,··· L -1 could be jointly estimated, either the training power Ep (which is equivalent to increase
without suffering additional interference due to the the PNR (tn) ) or the parameter tn' On the other hand, the
information sequence. With the estimated CIR, uCm)(t.) can estimation range of the proposed CFO(s) estimator, as
be obtained and, the CFO(s) estimation can be thus obtained shown in ( 1 0), is ±B/2tn ' which indicates that tn is
by (9)- (10) in one OFDM symbol interval.
inversely proportional to the frequency tracking range. That
C. CFO Estimation Ana lysis is, a trade-off is offered between the estimation range and
Note that e -J2 "
1Ct
CJ,,- i,,)/B=ycm)(tn)e-J21Ct
J,",/B /Ucm)(tn)e-J27rt
J,",/B the MSE of the CFO estimator. Therefore, the pilot
and we thus have
sampletn,n=l,.··N is set as B - (N -n+1)L-lfor the
fairness of estimation. Accordingly, the range of estimation

219
 10" t--�--�----;:====
: ::::==
:!:: ::::==
:::!: =Jl
-B Proposed Sl-based ML estimator
-*- Cramer-Rao bound

10.' L----'----
-- ---:'::------:':-
:- ---::!-:-
:: -----:-- ------;:; 10" OL--------
-:--- ---:::: 0-----:-!;:5-----:�
2 -----:�
2 5------30-;
o 10 15 20 25-;!; 30 1 1 O
Signal-la-Noise Ratio (SNR)
Signat-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

Fig. 2 CFO estimation performance against SNR with the normalized

Fig. I CFO estimation performance against SNR with the normalized
Doppler frequency J; =0.2 and J; =O.4S.
Doppler frequency J; =O.OS and J; =O.IS.

yields ±B/2(B-L-l) � ± 0.5, which is generally large IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

enough for CFO tracking.
Commonly, the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) places a We assume the MIMO/OFDM system with N 2 and M =

bound on the variance of each element to be estimated, and = 4. The symbol-size is B 512 and the transmitted
=

it can be used as a benchmark in related works [8]-[ll]. datasn(k) is 8-PSK signals with symbol rate!, =107 / se�ond.
Herein, we derive CRB to evaluate the performance of our The channel is assumed to be L= 8 and, the coeffiCIents
estimator. Firstly, we compute the Fisher information matrix h(m) (t) are generated as low-pass, Gaussian and zero mean
by r;�dom processes and correlated in time with the correlation
functions according to Jakes' model [18]. The training
2 ay(m) (t n) e-J2ff/"t a ))H e J2ffj;t
"/B ( y(m) (t n "/B power is set as E E,. CP length is chosen to be 16 to
=

In
= avoid inter-symb�l interferences. The additive noise is a
0'; aln aIn Gaussian and white random process with a zero mean. In
47r2t : lu(m) (t n ) 12 our simulation, perfect channel state information is assumed
n=1, ,,· N . ( 15) to be known at the receiver.
B2 0'; To evaluate the proposed ST-based ML estimator, we
The CRB can be readily derived as resort to the MSE of CFO estimation to measure the
estimation performance, which is defined as

( 16)

It is seen that when the training power E at pilot sample tn
is equal to that of the average po�er of information
sequence, i.e. Ep Es' the CRB is exactly identical t� ( 14) ,
=
Fig. 1 shows the performance of the proposed ST-based
ML estimator with different values of carrier frequency
offset, i.e. J; 0.05 andJ; 0.15. It is observed from Fig. 1
= =

which means that the performance of the proposed estlmator
approaches to the CRB for high SNR scenario.
Unlike the existing piloted aided schemes [10]-[12] [17]
where multiple pilots are utilized for frequency tracking, we
that the MSE of the proposed estimator is unbiased as the
SNR increases, and approaches CRB for high SNR scenario
(when SNR :e: I5dB). According to the selection of the pilot
sample tn' n 1,'" N in Section III, the CFO tracking range
=

exploit a ST-based estimator where only one pilot sample is is up to ± 0.5. Therefore, we present the performance of our
exploited at each transmitter for ML CFOs estimation of estimator for large CFOs, i.e. J; 0.2 andJ; 0.45 in Fig. 2.
= =

distinct users. By using the specifically designed training
signals (6)-(8), no approximation on the log-likelihood
function needs to be made, and thus, the ML estimation
process can be simplified and, resulting in a simple
expression for the estimator solution. Therefore, for the case
of high SNR scenario, the proposed approach can be
considered as a promising alternative instead of multiple
pilot based estimators, while preserving good estimation
accuracy.
From Fig. 2, we observe that the estimation performance of
our estimation approach, similar to that of Fig. 1, becomes
unbiased and approaches to CRB. However, it requires a
higher SNR, i. e. SNR � 20dB.
Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 are consistent with the estimation
analysis in section III-C. That is, the proposed CFO
estimation approach is unbiased and, approaches CRB as the
increment of SNR. On the other hand, we notice that the
proposed estimator, however, requires a higher SNR to a

250
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O L-__-L____L-__-L____L-__-L____L-__-L__�
0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
Normalized Doppler Frequency
Fig. 3 Required SNR for achieving certain MSE under different normalized
carrier frequency offsets.
V. CONCLUSION
An efficient ST-based ML method has been proposed
for estimating the CFOs of an uplink multiuser
MIMO/OFDM system. With the specifically designed
training signals, the ML estimation process can be greatly
simplified since no approximation on the log-likelihood
function needs to be made, and the CFOs estimation can be
performed by using only a single pilot sample of each user.
We also present a performance analysis of the frequency
tracking approach and derive a closed-form expression for
the CFO estimation variance with reasonable approximation.
It is shown that the estimation variance approaches CRB for
high SNR scenario.
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1974

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work is supported by national Natural Science

Foundation (NSF) of China, Grant 60772132 and key project
of NSF of Guangdong province, Grant 825102750100001l.

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