Patent ID: 7596181

Claim:
A method for frequency synchronization in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system, the method comprising the steps of: dividing data symbols of a particular OFDM symbol into at least two Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) parts each having cyclic prefixes; transmitting OFDM symbols including the divided FFT parts such that a data symbol size of a particular OFDM symbol is set to be smaller than a data symbol size of typical OFDM symbols within a frame; receiving the particular OFDM symbol and calculating respectively correlation coefficients of the particular OFDM symbol based on both a time interval of data symbols of the particular OFDM symbol and a time interval of data symbols of the typical OFDM symbol; taking respectively phases of corresponding correlation coefficients calculated from the particular OFDM symbol and estimating a decimal part of a frequency offset; and determining an integer part of the frequency offset corresponding to the decimal part of the frequency offset for estimating a substantially entire frequency offset and acquiring the frequency synchronization; wherein a total size of the cyclic prefixes in each of the FFT parts is larger than the size of the cyclic prefix of the typical OFDM symbol.