An adaptive channel estimator for CDMA systems in multipath fading channels

Journal ArticleABSTRACT CDMA systems in multipath fading channels need to estimate channel parameters for coherent detection of the transmitted signals. In this paper we present a simple but effective channel estimation algorithm that can be incorporated into most types of multiuser receivers to obtain good detection performance. This technique uses a set of correlation filters to independently estimate each of the channel parameters. One advantage our method has over subspace-based algorithms for channel estimation is that it can estimate the channel parameters without phase or amplitude ambiguity. Simulation results demonstrating that our channel estimator is capable of tracking reasonably fast fading channels are also presented in the paper

Coded DS-CDMA Systems with Iterative Channel Estimation and no Pilot Symbols

In this paper, we describe direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems with quadriphase-shift keying in which channel estimation, coherent demodulation, and decoding are iteratively performed without the use of any training or pilot symbols. An expectation-maximization channel-estimation algorithm for the fading amplitude, phase, and the interference power spectral density (PSD) due to the combined interference and thermal noise is proposed for DS-CDMA systems with irregular repeat-accumulate codes. After initial estimates of the fading amplitude, phase, and interference PSD are obtained from the received symbols, subsequent values of these parameters are iteratively updated by using the soft feedback from the channel decoder. The updated estimates are combined with the received symbols and iteratively passed to the decoder. The elimination of pilot symbols simplifies the system design and allows either an enhanced information throughput, an improved bit error rate, or greater spectral efficiency. The interference-PSD estimation enables DS-CDMA systems to significantly suppress interference.Comment: To appear, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication

Near-Instantaneously Adaptive HSDPA-Style OFDM Versus MC-CDMA Transceivers for WIFI, WIMAX, and Next-Generation Cellular Systems

Burts-by-burst (BbB) adaptive high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) style multicarrier systems are reviewed, identifying their most critical design aspects. These systems exhibit numerous attractive features, rendering them eminently eligible for employment in next-generation wireless systems. It is argued that BbB-adaptive or symbol-by-symbol adaptive orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) modems counteract the near instantaneous channel quality variations and hence attain an increased throughput or robustness in comparison to their fixed-mode counterparts. Although they act quite differently, various diversity techniques, such as Rake receivers and space-time block coding (STBC) are also capable of mitigating the channel quality variations in their effort to reduce the bit error ratio (BER), provided that the individual antenna elements experience independent fading. By contrast, in the presence of correlated fading imposed by shadowing or time-variant multiuser interference, the benefits of space-time coding erode and it is unrealistic to expect that a fixed-mode space-time coded system remains capable of maintaining a near-constant BER

A Linear Multi-User Detector for STBC MC-CDMA Systems based on the Adaptive Implementation of the Minimum-Conditional Bit-Error-Rate Criterion and on Genetic Algorithm-assisted MMSE Channel Estimation

The implementation of efficient baseband receivers characterized by affordable computational load is a crucial point in the development of transmission systems exploiting diversity in different domains. In this paper, we are proposing a linear multi-user detector for MIMO MC-CDMA systems with Alamouti’s Space-Time Block Coding, inspired by the concept of Minimum Conditional Bit-Error-Rate (MCBER) and relying on Genetic-Algorithm (GA)-assisted MMSE channel estimation. The MCBER combiner has been implemented in adaptive way by using Least-Mean-Square (LMS) optimization. Firstly, we shall analyze the proposed adaptive MCBER MUD receiver with ideal knowledge of Channel Status Information (CSI). Afterwards, we shall consider the complete receiver structure, encompassing also the non-ideal GA-assisted channel estimation. Simulation results evidenced that the proposed MCBER receiver always outperforms state-of-the-art receiver schemes based on EGC and MMSE criterion exploiting the same degree of channel knowledge (i.e. ideal or estimated CSI)

Code-timing synchronization in DS-CDMA systems using space-time diversity

The synchronization of a desired user transmitting a known training sequence in a direct-sequence (DS) asynchronous code-division multiple-access (CDMA) sys-tem is addressed. It is assumed that the receiver consists of an arbitrary antenna array and works in a near-far, frequency-nonselective, slowly fading channel. The estimator that we propose is derived by applying the maximum likelihood (ML) principle to a signal model in which the contribution of all the interfering compo-nents (e.g., multiple-access interference, external interference and noise) is modeled as a Gaussian term with an unknown and arbitrary space-time correlation matrix. The main contribution of this paper is the fact that the estimator makes eÆcient use of the structure of the signals in both the space and time domains. Its perfor-mance is compared with the Cramer-Rao Bound, and with the performance of other methods proposed recently that also employ an antenna array but only exploit the structure of the signals in one of the two domains, while using the other simply as a means of path diversity. It is shown that the use of the temporal and spatial structures is necessary to achieve synchronization in heavily loaded systems or in the presence of directional external interference.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Interference suppression and diversity for CDMA systems

In code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems, due to non-orthogonality of the spreading codes and multipath channels, the desired signal suffers interference from other users. Signal fading due to multipath propagation is another source of impairment in wireless CDMA systems, often severely impacting performance. In this dissertation, reduced-rank minimum mean square error (MMSE) receiver and reduced-rank minimum variance receiver are investigated to suppress interference; transmit diversity is applied to multicarrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) systems to combat fading; packet combing is studied to provide both interference suppression and diversity for CDMA random access systems. The reduced-rank MMSE receiver that uses a reduced-rank estimated covariance matrix is studied to improve the performance of MMSE receiver in CDMA systems. It is shown that the reduced-rank MMSE receiver has much better performance than the full-rank MMSE receiver when the covariance matrix is estimated by using a finite number of data samples and the desired signal is in a low dimensional subspace. It is also demonstrated that the reduced-rank minimum variance receiver outperforms the full-rank minimum variance receiver. The probability density function of the output SNR of the full-rank and reduced-rank linear MMSE estimators is derived for a general linear signal model under the assumption that the signals and noise are Gaussian distributed. Space-time coding that is originally proposed for narrow band systems is applied to an MC-CDMA system in order to get transmit diversity for such a wideband system. Some techniques to jointly decode the space-time code and suppress interference are developed. The channel estimation using either pilot channels or pilot symbols is studied for MC-CDMA systems with space-time coding. Performance of CDMA random access systems with packet combining in fading channels is analyzed. By combining the current retransmitted packet with all its previous transmitted copies, the receiver obtains a diversity gain plus an increased interference and noise suppression gain. Therefore, the bit error rate dramatically decreases with the number of transmissions increasing, which in turn improves the system throughput and reduces the average delay