INITIAL SYNCHRONIZATION FOR RECEIVERS

摘要

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for synchronizing a receiver to a timing and carrier frequency of a communication system. A set of predetermined possible synchronization patterns is detected in a signal (r[k]) received by said receiver, and a timing and structure information (FT) is generated specifying the occurrence of detected ones of said predetermined set of possible synchronization patterns in said received signal. Channel coefficient estimations (CCE) of different receiving channels are derived from said timing and structure information, and a carrier frequency offset (FO) of said received signal is determined based on a comparison of predetermined ones of said derived channel coefficient estimates. Thereby, inter-cell interference can be taken into account so that the proposed synchronization scheme can either suppress it or realize an additional macro diversity gain. A very robust frequency estimation results, which allows for spectrally efficient cellular network deployment with frequency reuse factor one.