openofdm/docs/source/freq_offset.rst

.. _freq_offset:

Frequency Offset Correction
===========================

This paper [1]_ explains why frequency offset occurs and how to correct it. In a
nutshell, there are two types of frequency offsets. The first is called
**Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO)** and is caused by the difference between the
transmitter and receiver's Local Oscillator (LO). This symptom of this offset is
a phase rotation of incoming I/Q samples (time domain). The second is **Sampling
Frequency Offset (SFO)** and is caused by the sampling effect. The symptom of
this offset is a phase rotation of constellation points after FFT (frequency
domain).

The CFO can be corrected with the help of short preamble (Coarse) long preamble
(Fine). And the SFO can be corrected using the pilot sub-carriers in each OFDM
symbol. Before we get into how exactly the correction is done. Let's see
visually how each correction step helps in the final constellation plane.

.. _fig_cons:
.. figure:: /images/cons.png
    :align: center

    Constellation Points Without Any Correction

.. figure:: /images/cons_w_coarse.png
    :align: center

    Constellation Points With Only Coarse Correction

.. figure:: /images/cons_w_coarse_fine.png
    :align: center

    Constellation Points With both Coarse and Fine Correction 

.. _fig_cons_full:
.. figure:: /images/cons_w_coarse_fine_pilot.png
    :align: center

    Constellation Points With Coarse, Fine and Pilot Correction

:numref:`fig_cons` to :numref:`fig_cons_full` shows the constellation points of
a 64-QAM modulated 802.11a packet.

Coarse CFO Correction
---------------------

The coarse CFO can be estimated using the short preamble as follows:

.. math::

    \alpha_{ST} = \frac{1}{16}\angle(\sum_{i=0}^{N}\overline{S[i]}S[i+16])

where :math:`\angle(\cdot)` is the phase of complex number and :math:`N \le 144
(160 - 16)` is the subset of short preambles utilized. The intuition is that the
phase difference between S[i] and S[i+16] represents the accumulated CFO over 16
samples.


After getting :math:`\alpha_{ST}`, each following I/Q samples (starting from
long preamble) are corrected as:

.. math::
    
    S'[m] = S[m]e^{-jm\alpha_{ST}}, m = 0, 1, 2, \ldots

In OpenOFDM, the coarse CFO is calculated in the ``sync_short`` module, and we
set :math:`N=64`. The ``prod_avg`` in :numref:`fig_sync_short` is fed into a
``moving_avg`` module with window size set to 64.



.. [1] Sourour, Essam, Hussein El-Ghoroury, and Dale McNeill.  "Frequency Offset Estimation and Correction in the IEEE 802.11 a WLAN." Vehicular Technology Conference, 2004. VTC2004-Fall. 2004 IEEE 60th. Vol. 7.  IEEE, 2004.