Preamble-Based SNR Estimation in Frequency Selective Channels for Wireless OFDM Systems

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) offers high data rates and robust performance in frequency selective channels by link adaptation utilizing information about the channel quality. A crucial parameter required for adaptive transmission is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this paper, we propose a novel SNR estimation algorithm for wireless OFDM systems based on the reuse of the synchronization preamble. The periodic structure of the preamble is utilized for the computationally efficient SNR estimation algorithm, based on the second-order moments of received preamble samples. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with the MMSE algorithm and two preamble-based algorithms found in the literature. It is shown that the proposed algorithm is robust against frequency selectivity and may therefore be used for subchannel SNR estimation.