Pilot-Based Time Domain SNR Estimation for Broadcasting OFDM Systems

Abstract

The estimation of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is a major issue in wireless orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system. In OFDM system, each frame starts with a preamble symbol that facilitates the SNR estimation. However, the performance of preamble-based SNR estimation schemes worsens in the fast-changing environment where channel changes symbol to symbol. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose a novel pilot-based SNR estimation scheme that optimally exploits the pilot subcarriers that are inserted in each data symbol of the OFDM frame. The proposed scheme computes the circular correlation between the received signal and the comb-type pilot sequence to obtain the SNR. The simulation results are compared with the conventional preamble-based Zadoff-Chu sequence SNR estimator. The results indicate that the proposed scheme generates near-ideal accuracy; especially in low SNR regimes, in terms of the normalized mean square error (NMSE). Moreover, this scheme offers a significant saving of computation over a conventional time domain SNR estimator.