Joint Channel Estimation and Synchronization Techniques for Time-Interleaved Block-Windowed Burst OFDM

From a conceptual perspective, beyond-5G technologies promise to deliver very low latency, even higher data rates, and ultrareliable connections for future generations of communication systems. Modulation schemes based on orthogonal frequency-domain multiplexing (OFDM) can accommodate these requirements for wireless systems. Several hybrid OFDM-based systems, such as the time-interleaved block-windowed burst–OFDM (TIBWB–OFDM), are capable of achieving even better spectral confinement and power efficiency. This paper addresses the implementation of the TIBWB–OFDM system in more realistic and practical wireless link scenarios by addressing the challenges of proper and reliable channel estimation and frame synchronization. We propose to incorporate a preamble formed by optimal correlation training sequences such as the Zadoff–Chu (ZC) sequences. The added ZC preamble sequence is used to jointly estimate the frame beginning through signal-correlation strategies and a threshold decision device, and acquire channel-state information (CSI) by employing estimators on the basis of the preamble sequence and transmitted data. The employed receiver estimators show that it is possible to detect the TIBWB–OFDM frame beginning and highlight the robustness of the TIBWB–OFDM technique to imperfect channel estimations by showing that it can provide comparatively close BER performance to the one where the CSI is perfectly known.