Blind coarse timing offset estimation for CP-OFDM and ZP-OFDM transmission over frequency selective channels

We present a blind coarse timing offset estimation technique for CP-OFDM and ZP-OFDM transmission over frequency selective channels. The technique exploits the cyclic prefix or zero-padding structure to estimate the starting position of the OFDM symbols without requiring any additional pilots. Simulation results are performed on various channel models with timing and frequency offsets. The presented technique is compared with the autocorrelation-based technique and various techniques in frequency selective channels. Our algorithm shows better performance results than those of the autocorrelation-based technique in NLOS channels, where the most predominant channel path is usually not the first arrival path.