Abstract: A new method to estimate the FFT block timing offset in the MC-CDMA system is proposed. Consecutive training sequences are used to acquire the initial time synchronization. The effect of the frequency offset on this estimator is analyzed. We compared this new method with the Schmidl and Cox's method(the SC method for short) through simulation in terms of estimator mean and variance, both in the AWGN channel and in the time-varying frequency selective channel. Results show that the mean bias and variance of the new method are all less than those of the SC's method.

Key words: multicarrier CDMA, time offset estimation, integration length, frequency offset estimation, mean bias