Synchronization for carrier frequency offset in wireless LAN 802.11a system

Abstract

The paper describes a synchronization method for carrier frequency offset (CFO) in the IEEE 802.11a wireless LAN system, which adopts OFDM-based transmission techniques and provides several different transmission data rates up to 54 Mbit/s. The algorithm proposed provides an acquisition and a tracking stage for CFO estimation and compensation. After the processes of synchronizer and equalizer, error vector magnitude is used to evaluate the system's performance under both AWGN and multipath fading channels. According to the simulation results, the algorithm resolves CFO problems efficiently with reasonable complexity.