Complexity reduction schemes for synchronization of IEEE 802.16a OFDM based systems

Recent demands for high rate wireless communications make OFDM a good candidate for combating selective fading phenomenon. One of the major problems, encountered in the OFDM systems is their synchronization. The synchronization tasks sometimes require extensive processing. In this paper, we study different synchronization techniques for the OFDM based physical (PHY) layer of the IEEE 802.11a standard and choose the one with acceptable performance and complexity. We also show that the synchronization tracking phase need not be performed on each OFDM symbol, but a suitable interval may be chosen for this purpose, which reduces complexity while maintaining the performance.