23

CHAPTER 4

Carrier Frequency Offset

Before an OFDM symbol can be successfully demodulated, the receiver has to synchronize to both
the transmitted frame timing and carrier frequency. First, the receiver has to know where exactly it
has to sample the incoming OFDM symbol prior to the FFT process. Secondly, the receiver has
to estimate and correct for any carrier frequency offset because offset can result in inter-carrier-
interference (ICI). In fact, the sensitivity to timing and carrier offset errors is higher in OFDM
systems than in single carrier systems [34]. Transmitted signals are provided with timing, frequency,
and phase reference parameters to assist with synchronization at the receiver. Proper detection at the
receiver requires knowledge of these parameters. The first task of the receiver is to estimate symbol
boundaries. If the receiver cannot clearly identify the symbol lengths, then ISI occurs. A preamble
consisting of a sequence of known symbols is used for the receiver. Once the presence of symbol is
detected, the next task is to estimate the frequency offset. Frequency offset occurs due to unmatched
frequencies on the received signal and the local oscillator at the receiver. Therefore, subcarriers could
be shifted from their original positions resulting in a non-orthogonal signal at the receiver resulting
in ICI after the FFT due to the FFT output containing interfering energy from all other subcarriers.
Other problems such as out-of-band radiation [38, 39] can also occur with OFDM transmissions.

4.1 CARRIER SYNCHRONIZATION ERROR

Frequency offsets are typically introduced by a (small) frequency mismatch in the local oscillators
of the transmitter and the receiver. Doppler shifts can also induce a slight frequency change of the
carrier frequency [40] and hence, lead to frequency mismatch.
The impact of a frequency error can be seen as an error where the received signal is sampled
during demodulation. Figure 4.1 depicts this twofold effect.
Since the subcarriers (SC) are orthogonal, when viewed in time domain, the peak of any sinc
is aligned with the zeros of all other sincs. Ideally, each SC is sampled at its peak, and there is no
contribution from the other SCs. However, when there is a frequency offset, sampling may not occur
at the peaks but at an offset point. The amplitude of the desired SC is reduced, and ICI arises from
the adjacent SCs.
Here, we would like to recall that after parallel to serial conversion the output of the IFFT
can be represented as
 
1 
N−1
j 2π kn
x[n] = s[k] exp . (4.1)
N N
k=0

A. B. Narasimhamurthy et al., OFDM Systems for Wireless Communications

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2010
24 4. CARRIER FREQUENCY OFFSET

Figure 4.1: Sampling mismatch due to CFO.

We now consider the case where there exists a mismatch in the frequencies of the received signal
and the local oscillator at the receiver. Ignoring the effects of the additive noise, the received signal
after removal of CP can be written as

 
1 
N−1
j 2π n(k + f )
z[n] = s[k]H [k] exp , (4.2)
N N
k=0

where f represents the relative frequency offset defined as the ratio of the actual frequency offset
to the intercarrier spacing, and H [k] is the transfer function of the channel at the frequency of the
k th subcarrier. z[n] here also represents the input to the FFT at the receiver. Therefore, the output
of the FFT can be expressed as

 
1 
N−1
j 2π kn
y[k] = z[n] exp . (4.3)
N N
n=0