Improved preamble-aided timing estimation for OFDM systems

An improved method for estimating the frame/symbol timing offset in preamble-aided OFDM systems is presented. It uses a conventional preamble structure and combines autocorrelation techniques with restricted crosscorrelation to achieve a near-ideal timing performance without significant increase in complexity. Computer simulations show that the method is robust in both AWGN and fading multipath channels, achieving better performance than the existing methods.