Performance analysis of frequency synchronization in MIMO-OFDM systems with ST/MRC scheme

In this paper, the performance of frequency synchronization in a multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system is analyzed for the purpose of carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation and compensation. Specifically, a joint transmit antenna selection (ST) and receive maximum ratio combining (MRC) (ST/MRC) method is adopted, that is, only one transmit antenna with the highest channel power is selected while MRC is used at the receiver to maximize the sum of frequency synchronization metric. The mean square error (MSE) closed-form expressions of CFO estimation are derived for several antenna configurations. Simulations in both flat and multipath fading channels validate the theoretical analysis.