Iterative Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation Scheme for Faster-Than-Nyquist Signaling Systems

As a nonorthogonal mode, faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signaling transmission can effectively improve the spectrum efficiency of a system. However, FTN signaling inevitably causes inter-symbol interference (ISI). The ISI hinders traditional synchronization methods from operating accurately, and this makes the carrier synchronization of FTN systems more complex. To overcome this issue, we propose an iterative carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation scheme for an FTN signaling system. The proposed CFO estimation scheme consists of two steps: i) a coarse estimation step based on discrete Fourier transform and ii) a fine estimation step based on a golden-section search algorithm. The simulation results show that the mean square error of the proposed scheme is lower than that of the conventional CFO estimation schemes and approaches the Cramer-Rao Bound, which is an optimal estimation performance bound.