A New Symbol Timing and Frequency
Synchronization Design for
OFDM-based WLAN Systems
Taekyu Kim and Sin-Chong Park
School of Engineering,
Information and Communications University
119, Munjiro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-732, Korea
Abstract - In this paper, we present a new symbol timing
and frequency synchronization method for OFDM WLAN
system. A new method for synchronization using preamble
structure of the IEEE 802.11a is proposed. The consecutive
preamble structure is exploited to find the symbol starting-
point and frequency offset accurately even under low SNR. The
proposed timing synchronizer performs the fine timing
synchronization first, and recognizes the end of short training
symbol by coarse timing synchronization. The new frequency
synchronization which means the estimation of frequency offset
is more accurate than conventional method by considering the
amplitude of preamble samples. Simulations show that it has
distinct advantage over the conventional methods under multi-
path wireless channel condition even though it uses the fixed
threshold for decision.
Keywords OFDM, timing offset, frequency offset
estimation, synchronization
1. Introduction
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is
an effective modulation technique to mitigate the inter-
symbol interference (ISI) caused by multi-path propagation. It
has been adopted for high-bit rate wireless local area
networks (WLANs) standards such as IEEE802.1 la [1] due
to its high data rate transmission and its robustness to multi-
path propagation channels.
However, OFDM systems are extremely sensitive to
receiver synchronization imperfection, which can cause the
degradation of system performance. Since these properties of
OFDM systems, synchronization at the receiver side is one of
the most critical issues. A number of symbol timing
synchronization methods using auto-correlation or cross-
correlation algorithms of the received preamble have been
developed and proposed. The conventional symbol timing
synchronization schemes for IEEE802.1 la WLAN systems
use short training symbols to estimate a coarse symbol time
acquisition via auto-correlation, and use long or short
symbols to find a fine symbol time acquisition via cross-
correlation as in [2-4]. There is also another scheme using
CIR (channel impulse response) for fine symbol time [5].
Since the 802.1 la protocol allows long training symbols
to be utilized for channel estimation [1], not only coarse but
fine time synchronization should be completed before the first
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long training symbol, T1 in Fig. 1. Therefore, the timing
synchronization methods which use the long training symbol
or need IFFT operation for CIR are excluded from the
discussion. The proposed method for timing synchronization
is accomplished sequentially by packet detection, fine and
coarse time synchronization using only cross-correlation. In
this paper, the performances of conventional and proposed
synchronizer are compared in terms of synchronization failure
rate.
The frequency synchronization, which means the
frequency offset estimation in this paper, is critical since any
frequency offset causes a loss of inter-subcarrier
orthogonality which results in inter-carrier interference (ICI)
[6]. In this paper, an efficient frequency offset estimation
scheme for IEEE 802.1 la WLAN is proposed. The estimator
exploits the consecutive preamble pattern as the conventional
method [7][8], but proposed estimator measures the
frequency offset considering the amplitudes of each preamble
sample. The larger amplitude's sample get the more weight
than the smaller one in the frequency offset estimation
process since smaller amplitude's samples of preamble are
more unreliable even though they are under the same channel
condition.
The rest of the paper is organized as follow: Section II
gives a brief description of OFDM WLAN system and the
frame structure use for synchronization. The conventional
and proposed timing and frequency synchronization
algorithms are described in Section III and IV, respectively
and our simulation results are discussed in Section IV.
Finally, Section V gives the conclusion.
2. OFDM-WLAN Preamble Structure
The 802.11 a standard defines the preamble as shown in
Fig. 1. Every frame has the preamble. The preamble consists
of ten identical short training symbols (t1,t2,. ..,t10) and two
. S+ti-...~~16,
4
, --I ,4
Figure. 1. Downlink long preamble structure.
- 1669 - Feb. 12-14, 2007 ICACT2007
identical long training symbols (T1, T2). Each short and long
training symbol consists of 16 and 64 samples, respectively
[1]. In addition, the GI field represents a guard interval for
the long symbol. It is a replicated filed consisting of the last
32 samples of the long symbol.
There are in the literature several algorithms for time and
frequency synchronization based on the correlation of known
sequences and the repetition of short training symbol. On the
other hand, the long training symbol is used for channel
estimation and fine frequency offset correction. Last symbol
in the header is a special symbol called SIGNAL which
carries information about length of the packet as well as the
modulation type of the encoded data.
3. Symbol Timing Synchronization
Conventional Method
1) Coarse time synchronization Based on algorithm in
[2], if the first half part of the training symbol is identical in
time-domain to the second part except for the phase shift
caused by the carrier frequency offset, we are able to
determine the first sample of the packet by using the
following metric:
M(n) = R(n)12 (1)
(P(n))2
where
LI
R(n) = Z (rfmrmL) and (2)
m=O
LI 2
P(n) = E |rn+m+L (3)
m=O
Here, r, is the time-domain n-th received sample, *
denotes complex conjugate and LC is the number of sample in
the first half part of the symbol. LC can be fixed to 16 or 32
depending on how long the correlation window is desired.
Since this LC means the auto correlation window size, the
larger window, the more stable the estimation. However, too
large window shortens the time duration for AGC operation,
and it causes the unstable estimation of coarse frequency
offset and fine timing synchronization.
The metric can be interpreted as a normalized auto-
correlation of the training symbol. It can be observed that the
metric follows a curve starting with a ramp that finishes in a
flat region and at the end the metric falls down. The coarse
timing synchronization, or packet detection, operation is to
find out the instant at which this metric, M(n), start to be
lager then the threshold, 7coarse as
Tcoarse = arg min{ M(n) > coarse} * (4)
2) Fine time synchronization Cross-correlation
technique is used for fine time synchronization. It utilizes
the end of the short training symbol for correlation from the
position obtained from the coarse time synchronizer. The
start position of the next OFDM symbol, or long training,
can be estimated by:
Lf
Trine = arg max mmLf +Lf (5)
(coare + 160 -Lf < n<Tcoarse+160)
where Trcoarse iS the resultant sample position estimated by the
coarse time synchronizer and Lf is the window size for cross-
correlation. And, Sk denotes one short training symbol.
Proposed Method
Proposed time synchronization method is accomplished
sequentially by packet detection, fine and coarse time
synchronization. These all operations are accomplished by
one correlator which performs the cross-correlation between
the received samples and known transmitted short training
symbol. It can be described by the following equation:
15 2
E (rn+MSM ) (6)
C(n) = m=O15
L rn+m 12
m=O
C(n), the normalized cross-correlation metric, has ten
peak values since the preamble has ten short training symbol.
3) Packet detection : In a packet detection process, the
receiver decides the existence of the packet by comparing the
C(n) with a threshold, qp. Let the instant at which the
packet detector recognizes be called Tpd.
4) Fine time synchronization Because the peak values
of C(n) exist every 16 samples as shown in Fig. 6, the peak
position indicates the start point of each short training
symbol. Fine time synchronization process search this time-
offset of the peak positions which can be estimated using
following equations:
(7)
Tfine offset = arg max [ f (k)]
where
LT,,,,,, /1 6
(8)
f(k)= I
i=l T,, / 16
C(16i+k) O<k<15-
Tcoarse denotes the instance founded by the following
coarse time synchronizer. LAi means the largest integer
number smaller than n. Equation (8) gives the non-coherent
summation of correlation values, which can mitigate the
distortion of peak positions due to channel noise and

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frequency offset. Tfi, o.ffset is a kind of phase offset number
from 0 to 15 within a short preamble symbol.
5) Coarse time synchronization: In coarse time
synchronization process, receiver obtains the information
whether the short training symbol is finished or not. This
information can be acquired by comparing the correlation
energy in the fine timing, phase offset among the 16 samples,
which is founded by the fine time synchronizer, with the
average of correlation energy for the other 15 positions. The
ratio of this two correlation values will become one, ideally
if there is no peak in the 16 energy value. Coarse time
synchronizer recognizes this position as the starting-point of
the G12. This ratio and decision rules can be represented
by:
gVK)::::::
J 1 15
C(k)
15 15,i
i=0,7i,Tfin, nffs,t
C(k - i)
and
lcoarse arg min [g(k) < Ycoarse ]
where Ycoarse denotes a threshold value and k is integer
number of multiple of 16 which is larger then Tpd Finally
the starting point of G12, TG12, is computed using:
TGI 2 =Tcoarse Tfine offset
Based on the description in subsection 1), 2) and 3), a
computational procedure of timing synchronization is
summarized as follow (see Fig. 2 and Fig. 3).
StepO. Calculate the cross correlation C(n) until the coarse
time synchronization is completed.
Stepl. Packet detector counts the number of peak position at
which correlation value C(n) is larger then Ypd to Npeak.
Step2. If there is no second peak within n NSTS, go to stepO
Step3. After the acquisition of Tpd, fine time synchronizer
starts to accumulate the C(n) for each time-offset phase
from 0 to 15.
TI t g tI
t t t
C(n)A
Tpd
T
Figure. 2. Process sequences of the proposed the time
synchronization.
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cor. detect
1Pd
Fine time TI
* --4
sync.
Tfileqoff,;et,
_ oa rse
time sync. _ crx"e
T
Figure. 3. Transaction of Proposed time synchronization.
Step4. After three short training symbols from starting-
position of fine time synchronizer, coarse time
(9) synchronizer is activated using the temporary Tfine offset
which is updated continuously by the fine time
synchronizer.
Step5. After the acquisition of Tcoarse, finally, synchronizer
calculates the starting point of G12 using (11).
('10)
4. Frequency Synchronization
The frequency offset estimation is performed by the
measuring the phase rotation in the Euclidian two
dimensional space between two complex vectors which are
separated in specific time interval. There are two kind of
frequency offset estimation in the OFDM-based wireless
(11) LAN system. One is coarse and the other is fine frequency
offset estimation. These are identical operation except of
time interval and the number of samples to be calculation. In
this paper, only the coarse frequency estimation which
operates in the short training symbol period is concerned.
The fine frequency offset estimation can be understood in a
same way.
We assume that the coarse frequency offset estimator uses
the last three short preamble symbols, i.e. t8, t9 and tlO.
Conventional Method
The conventional method is average of phase of rotation
[7][8]. This is given by
AO 1 (12)
Ls
where Ls is the length of short preamble symbol, 16. From
this operation, system knows the frequency offset between
transmitter and receiver in forms of amount of phase rotation
for the 16 samples, 0.8[ts. Since the each sample of short
preamble symbol, however, has its own amplitude, it is unfair
that all samples have the same weight for averaging of
arctangent evaluation for frequency offset.
- 1671 - Feb. 12-14, 2007 ICACT2007
Proposed Method
As stated above introduction subsection, the smaller
amplitude of sample is, the more sensitive, and unreliable it is,
for evaluating its phase in the same channel condition. The
proposed scheme, therefore, has the consideration of these
amplitudes as weight factor. This operation can be expressed
by the following (13).

AO = arctan r2LO
(13)
s ERe{ Re {rn r+Ls }

where Im {r rL } Re{+L } are weighting

and factor for
Figure. 4. Failure rate of the timing synchronization.
imaginary and real component, respectively.

5. Simulation Results
In this section, the proposed synchronization method is
simulated and compared with the conventional method in
terns of the synchronization failure rate. The proposed
method is simulated under multi-path Rayleigh fading
channel with Doppler shift, 150Hz and frequency offset
(Af If, = 0.3). The thresholds used for simulation are fixed
as licoarse =0.4, pd 00 9coarse = 3 The parameters of Npeak
for step 1 and n for step2 are three and five, respectively.
Simulation results exhibit the effectiveness of the
proposed method in AWGN and fading channels. Fig. 4
shows probability of timing synchronization. The Figure. 5. MSE of the frequency estimation.
synchronization failure includes either false detection or miss
detection. The curve shows that propose method is better
than conventional one by about 2dB at the low SNR condition. REFERENCES
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