Joint Decision-Directed Channel and Noise-Variance Estimation for MIMO OFDM/SDMA Systems Based on Expectation-Conditional Maximization

A joint channel impulse response (CIR) and noise-variance estimation scheme is proposed for multiuser multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing/space-division multiple access (OFDM/SDMA) systems, which is based on the expectation-conditional maximization (ECM) algorithm. Multiple users communicating over fading channels exhibiting a range of different characteristics are considered in this paper. Channel estimation becomes quite challenging in this scenario since an increased number of independent transmitter–receiver links having different statistical characteristics have to be simultaneously estimated for each subcarrier. To cope with this scenario, we design an ECM-based joint CIR and noise-variance estimator for multiuser MIMO OFDM/SDMA systems, which is capable of simultaneously estimating diverse CIRs and noise variance. Furthermore, we propose a forward error code (FEC)-aided decision-directed channel estimation scheme based on the ECM algorithm, which further improves the ECM algorithm by exploiting the error correction capability of an FEC decoder for iteratively exchanging information between the decoder and the ECM algorithm

Soft-Decision-Driven Channel Estimation for Pipelined Turbo Receivers

We consider channel estimation specific to turbo equalization for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication. We develop a soft-decision-driven sequential algorithm geared to the pipelined turbo equalizer architecture operating on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols. One interesting feature of the pipelined turbo equalizer is that multiple soft-decisions become available at various processing stages. A tricky issue is that these multiple decisions from different pipeline stages have varying levels of reliability. This paper establishes an effective strategy for the channel estimator to track the target channel, while dealing with observation sets with different qualities. The resulting algorithm is basically a linear sequential estimation algorithm and, as such, is Kalman-based in nature. The main difference here, however, is that the proposed algorithm employs puncturing on observation samples to effectively deal with the inherent correlation among the multiple demapper/decoder module outputs that cannot easily be removed by the traditional innovations approach. The proposed algorithm continuously monitors the quality of the feedback decisions and incorporates it in the channel estimation process. The proposed channel estimation scheme shows clear performance advantages relative to existing channel estimation techniques.Comment: 11 pages; IEEE Transactions on Communications 201

Channel, Phase Noise, and Frequency Offset in OFDM Systems: Joint Estimation, Data Detection, and Hybrid Cramer-Rao Lower Bound

Oscillator phase noise (PHN) and carrier frequency offset (CFO) can adversely impact the performance of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, since they can result in inter carrier interference and rotation of the signal constellation. In this paper, we propose an expectation conditional maximization (ECM) based algorithm for joint estimation of channel, PHN, and CFO in OFDM systems. We present the signal model for the estimation problem and derive the hybrid Cramer-Rao lower bound (HCRB) for the joint estimation problem. Next, we propose an iterative receiver based on an extended Kalman filter for joint data detection and PHN tracking. Numerical results show that, compared to existing algorithms, the performance of the proposed ECM-based estimator is closer to the derived HCRB and outperforms the existing estimation algorithms at moderate-to-high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In addition, the combined estimation algorithm and iterative receiver are more computationally efficient than existing algorithms and result in improved average uncoded and coded bit error rate (BER) performance

Channel estimation and data detection for mobile MIMO OFDM systems

Designing spectral efficient, high-speed wireless links that offer high quality- of-service and range capability has been a critical research and engineering challenge. In this thesis, we mainly address the complexity and performance issues of channel estimation and data detection in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems over time-varying channels. We derive the probability density function (pdf) expressions of the condition number (i.e., the maximum-to-minimum-singular-value ratio, MMSVR) of the channel state information matrix of MIMO OFDM systems. It is shown that this ratio is directly related to the noise enhancement in open-loop systems and provides a significant insight on the system capacity. A decision-directed (DD) maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) channel estimation scheme of MIMO systems is derived. Error performance of a zero- forcing receiver with the DD MAP and perfect channel estimates is provided and compared. This scheme has a low complexity and can be applied to time-varying Rayleigh fading channels with an arbitrary spaced-time correlation function. We propose an iterative channel estimation and data detection scheme for MIMO OFDM systems in the presence of inter-carrier-interference (ICI) due to the nature of time-varying channels. An ICI-based minimum-mean-square error (MMSE) detection scheme is derived. An expectation-maximization (EM) based least square (LS) channel estimator is proposed to minimize the mean-square error (MSE) of the channel estimates and to reduce the complexity of the implementation. With the estimate of the channel and initially detected symbols, ICI is estimated and removed from the received signal. Thus more accurate estimation of the channel and data detection can be obtained in the next iteration. An EM-based MAP channel estimator is derived by exploiting the frequency/time correlation of the pilot and data sub-carriers. Performance comparison is made between the proposed schemes and the ideal case - time-invariant channels and perfect channel estimation. We optimize the data transmission by exploiting the long term correlation characteristics. The transmitted data is successively detected without an error floor in spatially correlated channels. The algorithms proposed in this thesis allow low-complexity implementation of channel estimation and data detection for MIMO OFDM systems over time-varying fading channels, while providing good error performance.Keywords: inter-carrier-interference, MIMO OFD

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