Timing Synchronization for an Airborne OFDM System

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is widely used in the digital communication field now, for example, in Long Term Evolution (LTE). This modulation technique has achieved high data rates and increased bandwidth efficiency and robustness in complex environments by separating the channel into narrowband flat fading subchannels.
OFDM system requires the orthogonality of each subcarrier keeping to the receiver to recover the data transmitted. Synchronization errors in OFDM would cause intersymbol and intercarrier interference which will defect the orthogonality of each subcarrier. One way to achieve timing synchronization is by performing maximum likelihood functions on existing cyclic prefix of OFDM symbols to form peaks at the start of each symbol. The other way to the acquisition of the timing synchronization is by using training symbols in the transmitted OFDM signal. Both algorithms perform well at very low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). This thesis extends these two previous ways to acquire more accurate timing synchronization and addresses timing synchronization for an airborne OFDM system including the research for different SNRs, multipath and Doppler frequency offset with different synchronization methods.