Symbol timing estimation in OFDMA systems

Abstract

A method for detecting symbol timing in an OFDMA system is described, wherein a sub-channel comprises several groups (1) of sub carriers (2) spread over the frequency band, each group (1) of sub carriers (2) comprising at least one pilot carrier (4), said method comprising the steps of: correcting the received pilot sub carriers (4) with a set of different time shifts, calculating the standard deviation of the corrected pilot sub carriers (4) for each time shift, selecting the time shift showing the minimum standard deviation, and applying said time shift to received data sub carriers (5) on said sub-channel. Furthermore a OFDMA base station to be used to execute the method mentioned above, plus a computer program product causing a computer to perform said method is described.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.