An Iterative Method for Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation in OFDM Systems via Scattered Pilots

The paper proposes a new iterative method to estimate the carrier frequency offset (CFO) with scattered pilot symbols inserted for channel estimation in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. Assuming that the channel remains constant during a few consecutive OFDM blocks, the new method uses the correlations of the pilot symbols in these consecutive OFDM blocks. And an iterative concept is also employed to reduce the inter-carrier interference (ICI) that deteriorates the CFO estimation performance. After a few iterations, the proposed method can achieve the accuracy with no ICI. The mean square error (MSE) of the new method is analyzed and simulation results show the new method outperforms existing methods.