Block error rate performance of carrier frequency offset compensation and channel estimation methods using synchronization signals for NR PBCH

This paper proposes methods for estimating the carrier frequency offset (CFO) and channel response using synchronization signals for the physical broadcast channel (PBCH) in the 3GPP New Radio specifications. In the proposed methods, we estimate and compensate for the CFO of the received PBCH by employing the primary synchronization signal followed by estimation of the channel response using the demodulation reference signal (DMRS) and the secondary synchronization signal (SSS). Computer simulation results show that the proposed CFO estimation method achieves almost the identical average block error rate (BLER) for the PBCH payload as that without CFO. We also show that the channel estimation method using the DMRS and SSS decreases the required average received signal-to-noise ratio at the average BLER of 10⁻³ by approximately 0.4 dB compared to that with only the DMRS. Finally, we show the effect of successive cancellation decoding and cyclic redundancy check-aided successive cancellation-list decoding on the BLER of the PBCH payload when employing a low-rate polar code.