In this paper, a novel maximum Doppler spread estimation algorithm for mobile communication systems is proposed. The proposed algorithm uses a fast Fourier transform (FFT) o f received pilot signals, which are related with the maximum Doppler frequency f,. The proposed algorithm does not need to know any other channel information such as signal to noise ratio(SNR) because o f using only the distribution o f a fading channel power spectrum. Especially, the proposed algorithm shows good performance over wide Doppler frequency in low SNR ( < IOdB).