Spectral analysis based blind frequency offset estimation for digital subcarrier multiplexing systems with adjustable roll-off factors and various modulation formats

We proposed a blind frequency offset estimation (FOE) method for digital subcarrier multiplexing (DSM) signals. By utilising spectral information from the DSM signal and analysing the correlation between the frequency offset (FO) and the summed power of the signal spectrum, the proposed FOE method can accurately and effectively handle various modulation schemes assigned to each subcarrier. The proposed FOE method exhibits a flexibility to the roll-off factor of the root raised cosine (RRC) spectral shaping and can achieve a high level of accuracy in FOE under different roll-off factors and subcarrier numbers, with an FOE error of less than 30 MHz under a fast Fourier transform (FFT) size of 2048. Additionally, the proposed FOE method has advantages in terms of the computational complexity compared to the existing method. The performance of the proposed FOE method is experimentally verified for 48Gbaud 16QAM DSM signals in a coherent detection system.