Non-pilot based carrier frequency offset estimation and reflection coefficient optimization for RIS-assisted OFDM systems

Carrier frequency synchronization between the transmitter and receiver is challenging due to oscillator inaccuracies and Doppler shifts, which lead to inter-carrier interference. To address this synchronization error, i.e., carrier frequency offset (CFO), we introduce a novel method for estimating the CFO in reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS)-assisted orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. Additionally, we present a method to optimize reflection coefficients, as adjusting the reflection coefficient of RIS can effectively manipulate signal propagation and amplitude, thereby enhancing system performance. In the proposed method, a randomized set of reflection coefficients is applied for the first OFDM symbol, and CFO is estimated using the oversampling method within that symbol over the Rayleigh fading environment. A deterministic approach is adopted to reduce grid search complexity. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed CFO estimation method, particularly in high signal-to-noise ratio scenarios, compared to the existing Zadoff Chu sequence-based estimator in terms of mean square error (MSE). Subsequently, the CFO is compensated in the second OFDM symbol using the estimated CFO, and the reflection coefficient is optimized by identifying the channel tap associated with the maximum channel impulse gain technique. The optimized reflection coefficient enhances system performance in terms of bit error rate (BER) for RIS-assisted OFDM systems.