  Unique Word-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (UW-OFDM) is known to
provide various performance benefits over conventional cyclic prefix (CP) based
OFDM. Most important, UW-OFDM features excellent spectral sidelobe suppression
properties and an outstanding bit error ratio (BER) performance. Carrier
frequency offset (CFO) induced impairments denote a challenging task for OFDM
systems of any kind. In this work we investigate the CFO effects on UW-OFDM and
compare it to conventional multi-carrier and single-carrier systems. Different
CFO compensation approaches with different computational complexity are
considered throughout this work and assessed against each other. A mean squared
error analysis carried out after data estimation reveals a significant higher
robustness of UW-OFDM over CP-OFDM against CFO effects. Additionally, the
conducted BER simulations generally support this conclusion for various
scenarios, ranging from uncoded to coded transmission in a frequency selective
environment.
