Parameter estimation of MC-CDMA signals based on modified cyclic autocorrelation

An algorithm, based on frequency domain accumulation for the cyclic autocorrelation of MC-CDMA signals, is proposed to estimate the signal parameters: useful data duration, symbol duration, and chip duration in multipath fading channel. Firstly the cycle autocorrelation of received MC-CDMA signals is computed, then frequency domain accumulation is used to reduce the influence of noise. At last, through interval measurement between the peak pulses in different slices, parameters mentioned above can be estimated. Meanwhile, for the estimation of symbol duration, a novel accumulative average method is developed: by averaging amplitudes of the spectral lines in each column parallel to the time-delay axis in the three-dimensional diagram, the symbol duration can be obtained. The cyclic autocorrelation expression of MC-CDMA signal has been derived, and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is effective and works well under the condition of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).