Model-Free Adaptive Frequency Calibration for Voltage-Controlled Oscillators

The operating frequency accuracy of the local oscillators is critical for the overall system performance in the communication systems.However,the high-precision oscillators could be too expensive for civil applications.In this paper,we propose a model-free adaptive frequency calibration framework for a voltage-controlled crystal oscillator(VCO)equipped with a time to digital converter(TDC),which can significantly improve the frequency accuracy of the VCO thus calibrated.The idea is to utilize a high-precision TDC to directly measure the VCO period which is then passed to a model-free method for working frequency calibration.One advantage of this method is that the working frequency calibration employs the system history of input/output(I/O)data,instead of establishing an accurate VCO voltagecontrolled oscillator model.Another advantage is the lightweight calibration method with low complexity such that it can be implemented on an MCU with limited computation capabilities.Experimental results show that the proposed calibration method can improve the frequency accuracy of a VCO from±20 ppm to±10 ppb,which indicates the promise of the modelfree adaptive frequency calibrator for VCOs.

Carrier frequency and symbol rate estimation based on cyclic spectrum

Carrier frequency and symbol rate estimation are the main contents of parameter estimation,which is the basis of modulation recognition and further processing of signals especially in non-cooperative communication.With the development of wireless communication,the signal transmission environment has become increasingly bad,causing more difficulties in parameter estimation.It is well known that the signal cycle spectrum is robust to noises and signal parameters are closely related.In practice,it is impossible to calculate the cyclic spectrum of infinite length data signals.When using finite length data to obtain a cycle spectrum,the truncation noise is induced,resulting in interference.It is necessary to overcome the influence of noises in order to improve the detection ability of discrete spectral lines.An improved method of the discrete spectral line extraction algorithm is proposed by reflecting the amplitude advantage of discrete spectral lines through salient features of continuous noises in discrete spectral line neighborhood.

Joint Estimation of Carrier Frequency and Phase Offset Based on Pilot Symbols in Quasi-Constant Envelope OFDM Satellite Systems

Spectral efficiency and energy efficiency are two important performance indicators of satellite systems. The Quasi-Constant Envelope Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing(QCE-OFDM) technique can achieve both high spectral efficiency and low peak-to-average power ratio(PAPR). Therefore, the QCE-OFDM technique is considered as a promising candidate multi-carrier technique for satellite systems. However, the Doppler effect will cause the carrier frequency offset(CFO), and the non-ideal oscillator will cause the carrier phase offset(CPO) in satellite systems. The CFO and CPO will further result in the bit-error-rate(BER) performance degradation. Hence, it is important to estimate and compensate the CFO and CPO. This paper analyzes the effects of both CFO and CPO in QCE-OFDM satellite systems. Furthermore, we propose a joint CFO and CPO estimation method based on the pilot symbols in the frequency domain. In addition, the optimal pilot symbol structure with different pilot overheads is designed according to the minimum Cramer-Rao bound(CRB) criterion. Simulation results show that the estimation accuracy of the proposed method is close to the CRB.

Blind carrier frequency estimation for phase shift keying signals in low signal to noise ratio

In order to solve the problem of carrier frequency blind estimation of PSK signals in electronic reconnaissance, a new estimation method was proposed. The phase shift keying（PSK） signal was divided into several overlapping intervals which had equal length, and the spectrum concentration measures of every interval were extracted by the FFT. And then, using the grid-density clustering, the spectrum concentration measures were classified into two categories, the narrowband spectrum interval and the wideband spectrum interval. The narrowband spectrum interval was regarded as the characteristic class. The spectrums of the characteristic class were accumulated to estimate the carrier frequency of PSK signal. The proposed method had avoided the non linear operation in the traditional PSK signal carrier frequency estimation algorithm. Thus, the signal to noise ratio （SNR） threshold was remarkably decreased. Moreover, the proposed method did not need the prior knowledge of the signal, which was suitable to the electronic reconnaissance occasion. Experimental results had verified the validity of the proposed estimation method in low SNR.

Carrier frequency disturbance distributions on GPS during equatorial ionospheric scintillation

In the equatorial region,deep amplitude fading in global positioning system(GPS)signals frequently occurs during the strong ionospheric scintillation,it can lead to the loss of lock in GPS carrier tracking loops,and result in increased positioning error and even navigation interruption.The relationships between amplitude scintillation indices and detrended carrier frequency are investigated,based on GPS L1 C/A signals during the last peak of the solar cycle at the low latitude site of São Josédos Campos,Brazil(23.2S,45.9W)from 2013 to 2015.Corresponding mathematic model of the probability distribution function is built for the first time to provide statistical analysis on the above relationships.The results show that the standard carrier frequencies reveal an almost linear relation with the amplitude scintillation indices.Moreover,the frequency widths of detrended frequency are proportional to levels of amplitude scintillation when the value of the peak probability is lower than the corresponding boundary.A conclusion can be drawn that different levels of amplitude scintillation will influence the fluctuation of the carrier frequency.The analysis will provide useful guidance to set the receiver’s bandwidth with respect to the different scintillation levels and design the advanced tracking algorithms to improve the robustness and precision of the GPS receiver.

ESTIMATION OF CARRIER FREQUENCY OFFSETS FOR MIMO SYSTEMS WITH DISTRIBUTED TRANSMIT ANTENNAS

The problem of estimating the carrier frequency offsets in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems with distributed transmit antennas is addressed. It is supposed that the transmit antennas are distributed while the receive antennas are still centralized, and the general case where both the time delays and the frequency offsets are possibly different for each transmit antenna is considered. The channel is supposed to be frequency flat, and the macroscopic fading is also taken into consideration. A carrier frequency offset estimator based on Maximum Likelihood (ML) is proposed, which can separately estimate the frequency offset for each transmit antenna and exploit the spatial diversity. The Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) for synchronous MIMO (i.e., the time delays for each transmit antenna are all equal) is also derived. Simulation results are given to illustrate the per- formance of the estimator and compare it with the CRB. It is shown that the estimator can provide satisfactory frequency offset estimates and its performance is close to the CRB for the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) below 20dB.

A new method for improving the inductively coupled data transmission rate of mooring buoy based on carrier signal frequency selection

In the inductively coupled data transmission system of the mooring buoy, the carrier signal frequency of the transmission channel is limited due to the inherent characteristics of the system, resulting in limited channel bandwidth. The limited channel bandwidth limits the increase in inductively coupled data transmission rate.In order to improve the inductively coupled data transmission rate of mooring buoy as much as possible without damaging the data transmission performance, a new method was proposed in this paper. The method is proposed to improve the data transmission rate by selecting the appropriate carrier signal frequencies based on the principle of maximizing the amplitude value of amplitude-frequency characteristic curve of the system. Research has been done according to this method as follows. Firstly, according to the inductively coupled transmission mooring buoy structure, the inductively coupled data transmission circuit model was established. The binary frequency shift keying(2FSK) digital signal modulation mode was selected. Through theoretical analysis, the relation between the carrier signal frequency and the data transmission performance, the relation between the carrier signal frequency and the 2FSK signal bandwidth were obtained. Secondly, the performance and the bandwidth of the signal transmission were studied for the inherent characteristics of the actual inductively coupled data transmission system. The amplitude-frequency characteristic of the system was analyzed by experiments. By selecting the appropriate carrier signal frequency parameters, an excellent data transmission performance was guaranteed and a large 2FSK signal bandwidth was obtained. Finally, an inductively coupled data transmission rate optimization experiment and a bit error rate analysis experiment were designed and carried out. The results show that the high-speed and reliable data transmission of the system was realized and the rate can reach 100 kbps.

THE PERFORMANCE OF MT-CDMA SYSTEM IN THE PRESENCE OF CARRIER FREQUENCY OFFSET

In this letter,the sensitivity of an uplink Multi-Tone Code-Division Multiple Access (MT-CDMA) system to the Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) is investigated. The analytical expression for the Bit Error Rate (BER) of uplink MT-CDMA in the presence of CFO is derived in a multipath Rayleigh fading channel which is verified through simulations. Both Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) and Equal Gain Combining (EGC) are considered in combining multipath signals in the analysis. It is found that the BER performance can be improved with the number of multipath increasing in the presence of CFO.

CARRIER FREQUENCY OFFSET ESTIMATION FOR INTERLEAVED OFDMA UPLINK BASED ON SUBSPACE PROCESSING

This paper investigates Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) estimation in the uplink of the Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) systems with the interleaved subcarrier assignment. CFOs between the transmitters and the uplink receiver will destroy orthogonality among different subcarriers, hence resulting in inter-carrier interference and multiuser interference. A two-stage frequency offset estimation algorithm based on subspace processing is proposed. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it can obtain the CFOs of all users simultaneously using only one OFDMA block. Compared with the previously known methods, it not only has a relatively low implementation complexity but is also suitable for random subchannel assignment.

Simulation Research of IEEE802.16a Single Carrier Frequency Domain Equalization Scheme

IEEE 802.16a is a wideband wireless access standard of the new generation,which is submitted by ITU on Apr. 2002.The standard advises to use OFDM or Single Carrier Frequency Domain Equalization in physical layer.As a part of the national 863 research project,this paper investigates SC-FDE scheme of wideband wireless access systems.We set up an integrate simulation platform and put forward a SC-FDE scheme combining with MIMO and RS-CC to improve the system performance further.

Factors affecting the performance of a multi-tone carrier source based re-circulating frequency shifter

Generation of single-sideband （SSB） multi-carrier source based on a recirculating frequency shifter （RFS） is anal- ysed theoretically and realized experimentally. The effects of affecting factors originating from the deviation from the right operation bias voltage and unbalanced amplitude, and the phase of the radio frequency （RF） drive signals on the performance of the multi-tone source are discussed in detail. Based on the theoretical analysis, high-quality 50-tone out- put is successfully realized. Experiments under some implementation imperfections are also carried out. The imperfect and low-quality output results are in good agreement with theoretical analysis.

Performance of a novel carrier frequency offset estimation algorithm for OFDM-based WLANs

This paper presents a novel carrier frequency offset estimation (CFO) algorithm for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). Compared with previous approaches, this paper extends the whole frequency offset acquisition range by embedding a synthetic algorithm according to the preamble structure of WLANs symbols. The numerical results presented support the effectiveness of this algorithm by which the estimation error of the whole carrier frequency offset in the WLANs is effectively decreased.

PROPAGATOR BASED CLOSED-FORM BLIND CARRIER FREQUENCY OFFSET ESTIMATION FOR OFDM SYSTEMS

Most of the blind Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) estimators necessitate large number of samples to ensure the estimation accuracy. However, the number of samples can not be selected too large because of the carrier offset drift. In this letter, a new closed form algorithm for blind OFDM CFO estimation in frequency-selective channel is proposed. This method utilizes the propagator obtained from data matrix and the diagonal loading technique, thus it has better performance even only using one or two OFDM blocks. Furthermore, the range of the CFO estimation which can be handled is overall transmission spectral. Simulation results confirm its effectiveness.

All-digital Carrier Frequency Tracking Method in LEO DS/SS Communication

An efficient method to track the carrier frequency which is recommended to use in low earth orbit(LEO) direct-sequence spread-spectrum(DS/SS) communication system is given. The carrier frequency drifts quicker in LEO DS/SS communication system, its tracking problem becomes much more important especially in digital receiver with the limits of physical shape and power. Under the condition of coarse carrier frequency synchronization, a digital tracking method based on least square method(LSM) is proved to be a quick, simple and efficient method. Numerical results and charts are given.

JOINT ESTIMATION OF CARRIER FREQUENCY OFFSET AND POWER DELAY PROFILE FOR MIMO-OFDM SYSTEMS

This paper develops a Cyclic Prefix(CP)based joint Maximum-Likelihood(ML)estima-tion algorithm of Carrier Frequency Offset(CFO)and Power Delay Profile(PDP)for Multi-InputMulti-Output Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing(MIMO-OFDM)systems.However,theexact solution of the joint ML estimation is very complex since it needs a search over amulti-dimensional domain.Thus a simplified method is proposed to estimate the CFO and the PDPiteratively via the alternating-projection method which could induce the multidimensional searchproblem to a sequence of simple one-dimensional searches.Simulations show that the proposed algo-rithm is more accurate and robust than the existing algorithms.

A High-Linear Radio Frequency Quadrature Modulator with Improved Sideband Suppression and Carrier Leakage Performance

The quadrature modulator is a crucial block in transmitters that upconverts baseband signals to theRadio Frequency(RF)band of interest using local oscillator frequencies.In this paper,non-ideal factors thatinfluence the performance of the quadrature modulator are considered,and solutions are accordingly taken inthe quadrature modulator design.A high-linear RF quadrature modulator with improved sideband suppressionand carrier leakage performance is presented in this work.The quadrature modulator implemented in the0.18-μm SiGe process uses the current bleeding technique to improve the general performance of the doublebalanced active Gilbert mixers.An on-chip prescaler followed by two cascaded limiting amplifiers is designed toprovide accurate quadrature local oscillator signals.Predrivers at quadrature baseband signal input ports areproposed to eliminate DC offsets.The measured sideband suppression achieves a performance of better than−43 dBc and carrier leakage is less than−38 dBm over the output RF frequency range of 30 MHz to 2.15 GHz.The output 1 dB compression point equals 11.4 dBm at 800 MHz.

Joint frequency offset tracking and PAPR reduction algorithm in OFDM systems

This paper presents an algorithm that aims to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio（PAPR） of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing（OFDM） communication systems while maintaining frequency tracking.The algorithm achieves PAPR reduction by applying the complex conjugates of the data symbol obtained from the frequency domain to cancel the phase of the data symbol.A likelihood estimator is used to obtain the sub-carrier phase error due to the residual carrier frequency offset（RCFO） using the same complex conjugates as a pilot signal.Furthermore,a joint time and frequency domain multicarrier phase locked loop（MPLL） is developed to compensate additional frequency offset.Simulation results show that this algorithm is capable of reducing PAPR without impacting the frequency tracking performance.

Pseudo-noise preamble based joint frame and frequency synchronization algorithm in OFDM communication systems

Frame and frequency synchronization are essential for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （OFDM） systems. The frame offset owing to incorrect start point position of the fast Fourier transform （FFT） window, and the carrier frequency offset （CFO） due to Doppler frequency shift or the frequency mismatch between the transmitter and receiver oscil ators, can bring severe inter-symbol interference （ISI） and inter-carrier interference （ICI） for the OFDM system. Relying on the relatively good correlation charac-teristic of the pseudo-noise （PN） sequence, a joint frame offset and normalized CFO estimation algorithm based on PN preamble in time domain is developed to realize the frame and frequency synchronization in the OFDM system. By comparison, the perfor-mances of the traditional algorithm and the improved algorithm are simulated under different conditions. The results indicate that the PN preamble based algorithm both in frame offset estimation and CFO estimation is more accurate, resource-saving and robust even under poor channel condition, such as low signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） and large normalized CFO.

Efficient integer frequency offset estimation for OFDM systems

An efficient scheme of integer frequency offset estimate for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （OFDM） systems is proposed based on a training symbol with several identicalparts. In this scheme, the received training symbol is first reshaped into several sub-symbols.It shows that the reshaping process in-troduees time diversity multiplexing.After a special fast Fourier transform （FFT） algorithm is applied to the sub-symbol,the integer frequency is estimated by finding the maximum magnitude of the resulting fre-quency domain signal.To improve the estimate performance,diversity combining methods are presented to makefull use of the multiple frequency domain sub-symbols.Compared to the traditional scheme, theproposed one has an improved estimate performance demonstrated by the computation simulation, while maintaining a very low complexity.

Frequency Offset Compensation for Satellite Communication System with CE-OFDM

Constant envelope orthogonal frequency division multiplexing(CE-OFDM) is a waveform that can achieve 0d B peak-to-average power ratio and avoid the signal distortion caused by the nonlinear power amplifi er. However, the carrier frequency offset(CFO) in CE-OFDM systems can cause errors at phase unwrapper module. In this paper, a CFO estimation scheme is proposed for CEOFDM in satellite communication system. As the null subcarrier is inherent in the conjugate symmetric symbol structure at the transmitter, the proposed scheme uses the null subcarrier as prior information to estimate the CFO at the receiver. The ideal estimation range of normalized CFO is obtained by mathematical analysis. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can estimate the CFO accurately under additive white Gaussian noise(AWGN) channel and multipath fading channel, especially for moderate and high signal-to-noise ratio(SNR).