Improved Time and Frequency Synchronization Algorithm for 802.11a Wireless Standard based on the SIGNAL Field

Abstract

Time and frequency synchronization in the IEEE 802.11a OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) wireless communication system is addressed in this paper. Usually synchronization algorithms rely only on training sequences specified by the standard. To enhance the synchronization between stations, we propose to extract known information by both the transmitter and the receiver at the IEEE 802.11a physical layer to be then exploited by the receiver in addition to the training sequences. Indeed the parts of the identified SIGNAL field are either known or predictable from the RtS (Request to Send) control frame when the CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) mechanism is triggered jointly to bit-rate adaptation algorithms to the channel. Moreover the received RtS control frame allows the receiver to estimate the channel before time synchronization stage improving then the performance of the proposed synchronization algorithm. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed synchronization algorithm is improved as compared to existing algorithms.