A Novel Timing Synchronization Method for Distributed MIMO-OFDM Systems in Multi-path Rayleigh Fading Channels

In this paper, we propose an accurate and efficient timing synchronization method for distributed multi-input multi-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system in both AWGN and multi-path Rayleigh fading channels. A modified cyclic delay synchronization pattern (MCDSP) is proposed and it is verified to be especially suitable for distributed system which needs to separate the signal arriving time of each transmit antenna. At the receiver, two additional methods termed antenna cluster separation window (ACSW) and multi-path backward searching (MPBS) are employed to combat the multi-path effect.