Initial Ranging for WiMAX (802.16e) OFDMA

Ranging is one of the most important processes in the new mobile WiMAX standard. Power adjustment, timing offset estimation, and synchronization between a base station (BS) and all users within a cell are done through the ranging process known as initial ranging. In this paper we discuss the details of initial ranging and some of the proposed algorithms as well as a novel algorithm to carry out a successful ranging process. Performance curves and computational complexity comparisons will be presented. It is observed that the proposed algorithm offers a better trade-off between computational complexity and performance