The Implementation of Estimation and

Correction of Carrier Frequency Offset of

COFDM system in DAB Receiver
Linghi Huang, and Zaiwang Dung
Department of Electronics Engineering
Tsinghna University, F.RChina

Abstract: Estimation of the carrier frequency offset is a

carries. I is integer and n is decinial fraction less than 0.5.

key pan of COFDM receivers. An novel Iiardware

sclienie of Carrier Frequency Offset Estiimtion and

I,&. is called coarse frequency offset wldcli covers

integer multiple of the distance beh5,een carries. And o

Corrections of COFDM system in DAB(digita1 audio

fsc is called fine frequency offset which covers the offset

broadcast) Receiver is iinpleniented on P G A . It has

less thin half of the distance beh-een contenninous

been embedded in the mnonolitluc DAB c h a d decoder

canies.

+=?z

and it also can be utilized in other OFDM system after

Channel decoder

soiiie inodfication
Kcyvord: CFO(Camer frequency offset). COFDM

Erlimnlion of

Ld-ordlat"

frequency offsn

(Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing),

(a)

CORDIC(C0rdina re Rot.arioiis D I g i t a l Compute)

RF

AID

co*.Xtioon of

C h a d dmoder

1. Introduction
OFDM is a bandwidth efficient signaling scheme
for digital conununications that was first proposed by

Figun: I

C11;ing~~'
'I. For its robustness against the effects of
inultipath propagation n4uch are main obshuctions of

Many methods have been proposed on estimation of

frequency offset. and they can be classified into hVO class

mobile reception and realiz~tion of single frequency

nenvork. OFDM is widely adopted.

by weather the transmitter signal contains the signal

specially set for frequency estiination. The correction of

But the transpolt systems of OFDM are very

sensitivity to frequency offset. To obtain responsible

one is depict as figure l(a) that adjust the local-oscillator

the Frequency offset can also be classified into hvo class.

deniodulated signils. the carrier of the receiver must

to make the carriers accordant. and another is depict as

keep consistent with the transmitter's.

figure l(b) that adjust the phase of the signal input to the
OFDM decoder to make frequency syncluonization

Tliere're many carriers in OFDM signal. And the

frequency offset
two palt:

Y,

A
k . engendered in

+&

Tlus paper introduces the hardware sclieiiie of

channel includes

Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation and Corrections,

and it is according to ETS 300 401 DAB. It has been

(1)

employed in the ASIC design of DAB receiver.

\Vlicre,fic is the distance behveen contenninous

0-7803-7889-X/03/$17.00@2003 IEEE.

890

2 . Estimation of frequency offset

In OFDM, to avoid tlie inter-symbol interference

(ISI). the guard interval is employed wluclm is the same as
the backend of signal of the symbol. So it can also be call
as cyclic prefix. And u'e can use it to calculate the fine
frequency offset.

The DAB trammitter signal includes specialized

sigilal called phase reference syiiibol. Correlating the
phase reference symbol with the standard phase
rcfcrence symbol stored in local receiver can easily get
tlie coarse frequency offsct. but the estimation of fine
offset is coinplcx.

r ( f ) is the guard i n t e n d of symbol received.

I,, is

, . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - - - _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _the
_ _duration of a synibol which is the reciprocal of
t

rim ircqucncy
CPiimstl""

To estimate the
coarse offset should
calculate the sigiml
in frequency doinain

work after
FFT decoder. And to
estimate the fine

wluch

offset should make

doniain

the distance betaeen carries. that is f,

just

after

AD. So the system is a half closed loop system for the

= lir,. And

coarse frequency offset estiination is closed loop but the

r(r-T,,) is the baclrend signal of the .symbol.

In

fine offset estinwtion not. The system structure is

i d e a I ctraniiel condition:
)'(I)= ?(/

depicted in figure 2. The system control and the

calculation of angle or phase in the fine frequency offset

(2)

-T, )

estimation and the frequency correction are the most

If there is rrequency offset. the two sigmil hive pliase

difficulties.

diiierence. concerning ( I ) that is

!.(,I

3.1 Coarse frequency offset cstiniatiou

Using the cam. signal of phase reference synibol
decoded froin FFT to correlate with the standard plme

(3)

-7' )ewd

The phase difference implicates the infomation of

frequency offset. To correlate them then
R(,)=,j(,)..

reference symbol. we can get coarse frequency offset

estimation witch less than 8liHz. And the offset large

r ( r - T , , ) = C e . ; p ( i z ~ f l ~ ~ s r , ) (4)

than 8kHz can obtain froin the envelope demodulation in

\\here C is real nuniber wluch equal to square of the

frequency domain

amplitude of the OFDM synrbol.

I n practical. the cunnilation is adopted to depress

3.2 Fine frequency offset estimation

interfere.
11;

= ER(,) = c v ( f ) ' .r(t-

T,,)

To get the fine frequency offset, u'e should calculate

the fonnula (5). This acluevement is coiuposed of die
datain part. the corrclation part. the angle compute part

(5)

= ~Ccxp(jZm&T,;,)= Kesp(j2mf,7;,)

and the system control. The input includes two

orlhogonal signals I and Q created from A D and the
3. System Airhitectuix and Scheme

syn~bolstart signal.

891

'

Range can be extended to *?rand the correspondiug

-2.2.1 The'inddta read control module

frequency offset can be extended to +jOOHz (mode I).

In formula (4) or ( 5 ) . we need buffer to transfer the

data. In DAB mode I. T = 2048, wlucli mean 2048

The essence idea of CODIC algoritluii is to approach the

ai111 by rotate karctan(li2"). The pllaase error is confined

sample data (not including cyclic prefix). To perform the

correlation. the buffer has to be

L d rotale

more tliaii 2048. In our

iinplementation, the donble port

sram is cmployed which the

sane time is the transmit

behveen DIQ and backend

#me= pII-(Imp,,p,"tJ,

O.

Qighlrnrle

decoder.
In DAB system. the time
s~nchronization can obtained
Figue 4

from the null symbol. so the

start position of each symbol

can be ascertained and we can reduce the
conelation quantih form this that we do not

RIpnrla
lnlLroirclrlo

cokelate all the data but select p.m of the

cyclic prefix and thc comsponding pan of
the synbol. For both the front part of tlie

q c l i c prefiz and tlic backend of the symbol

could bc distuhed by multi-path effect and
mobile receiving condition. we can select

the pan to conelate b?- tlie channel condition.

But in pnctice. for simpleness. firm position

Figurs 5

is chosen. \\~luchis the middle part (256 samples) of the

c!~clic prefix (504 samples) and it's corresponding part.

by the last rotate. For example. in a IO stage CORDIC.

All these tasks are achieved in control module.

Some regulations are applied to make it calculate

the arc iangent. The flow clia$ is shown in figure 4 and

3.2.2 Angle and Phase Calculate

its circuit design in figure 5. After tlie CORDIC. the

the phase error is less than 0.004(radian).

Calculating the angle and pluse of the outcome of

condate outcome is rotated to a real nuniber. and lhe

angle it rotxed is the p l w e we want.

offset. Oue method is tlut take the image pan of the

Pay attention
on ihe coefficient the original complex iiumber Ius been

corrclate outcome a s it's angle. Tlus method can work

magnified. It is a fix nlultiple:1.647. so the complex

ivcll \\lien the anglc is \-e? small. but when the angle is
not closed to zero. it will create lager e m r and it is

iiumber should be eztcnd before CORDIC to avoid

oveflow. The allgle rotate on each stage is - ~ X I ~ ~ , ( I , ~ ' ) .

unacceptable especially for an unclosed loop system. So

wlucli is easily implemented by shift in Iurdware design.

correlator is the key p m in the estimation of frequency

the accnmte angle is obligaton.

3.2.3 correction of frequency offset

The CORDIC algoritluii is introduced into this

calculation It needs less hardware overhead to calculate

Figure

the arc tangent. If qoadrant judge is added. the D y ~ i n i c

892

l(a) show

the tnditional

iiietliod to

contction frequency offset. Tlus method required the

local oscillator to be high precision high stability and

adjustable. It is llard to realized. In tlis implementation

the digiial correction method shoa~ in figure 1@)k

eniployed. The principle of digital correction is to
counteract the frequency offset before OFDM decode by
digital signal process. Tllat is
~-JWW(I=
) r(t)exp(j2mfsCT,)x

exp(-j2mfxT,)

niodule on 4 M.
/Compilation

Logic Cells

Registers

82

sync-datain
sync-correlate

71

373

sync-compute

(7)

I , 667

sync-correct

400

11 can be acldeved by Direct-Digital Synthesizer

(DDS) and multiple module. But the inultiple need large

5 . Conclusions

s..

area and thc DDS should look up table. DDS ~vluclineed

An novel hardware design of Camcr

....-..

Phrvl

Phase?

1m.a

PhSd

and verification on FPGA prove this design

Figure 6

is practicable.

complex control and its precision is confined to the table

memot?;. The CORDIC can also work here. It is just the

Reference:

counterreaction of the estimaiion. By accuinulate the

I.

frequenq offset we can get the phase wlucli the indata

should rotate. Aiid

\\p

Offsei Estimation
aiid
Corrections DAB recciver is impleoieuied
and verify on FPGA. The siinulaiion result
Frequency

modulate the pliase each stage to

Clmg R W.Synthesis of band-limited ort1iogon;il

signals for multi-channel data transuussion[J I.Bell
Syst Tech J.19GG.45( 12):1775-1 796

make it zero at the end. and the complex number after

2.

process ciin be send io FFT to decode. To reduce the

work clock on the coiirinlance work. tlie pipeline

stnicture is employed. Figure 6 depict the 9 stage

pipcline. Tlierc also can choose a tmde-off behveen area
2.

aud speed.
Each stage required deferent precision . to reduce

Cliang R W.Gibbey ,R A.A tlieoreiical study of

perfonnance of an ortliogoilal tuultiplering dar;~
transmission
sclieiue
[I]. IEEE
Trans
Coinuiunication Technolopy. 1968. I G(S):529-5dO.
EBU. ETS 300 401. "Radio Broadcasting Systems:
Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB)to mobile.
portable and fixed receivers". 1997

the design resource. the wordlength of each stage is

defcreni. Stage 1 is Rbit and the last stage is 13bit. Tlus
change make the gates reduced about 1 0 .

4.

Jack

E.Volder.

The

CORDIC

trigonomctriz

teclmique.IRE Trans.on Electronic Coiuputins.

1959.8 : 330-334
5.

4. 1ml)lementation

Hui Lu, "A rcsearch on tlie DAB receiver based ou

the

Tlds system is designed from top to down. All the

design is described in VHDL in register transfer
leuel(RTL). The design Iias been siuiulated on Modelsiui
and been placed and rouied on FPGA-complie aud
QUARTUS. It's donmload on EPlK100QC208-3 of
ALTERA's ACEX series FPGA. The resource of the clip
has been used 62% aiid the design is about 50.000 gates.
All inodole work on 2 M clock except the indata control

sofnvare

radio

mechanism

and

tlie

syncluoniwtion algorithm". doctor dissert:ition of

6.

Tsiogliua univ.. 3.2000

Lei Xu, "design on the synchionization systeiii or
digital audio broadcasting". niaster dissertation of
Tsingliua u n i ... 6.2002

7.

teclmiquc repolt of Tsinghua Uiiiv.; 9.1999

893

Yonping Zhou. Hua 'Guan. Zaiwng Dong

" controllable
digital frequency Synlliesizci'.