Large-System Analysis of Joint Channel and Data Estimation for MIMO DS-CDMA Systems

This paper presents a large-system analysis of the performance of joint channel estimation, multiuser detection, and per-user decoding (CE-MUDD) for randomly-spread multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems. A suboptimal receiver based on successive decoding in conjunction with linear minimum mean-squared error (LMMSE) channel estimation is investigated. The replica method, developed in statistical mechanics, is used to evaluate the performance in the large-system limit, where the number of users and the spreading factor tend to infinity while their ratio and the number of transmit and receive antennas are kept constant. The performance of the joint CE-MUDD based on LMMSE channel estimation is compared to the spectral efficiencies of several receivers based on one-shot LMMSE channel estimation, in which the decoded data symbols are not utilized to refine the initial channel estimates. The results imply that the use of joint CE-MUDD significantly reduces rate loss due to transmission of pilot signals, especially for multiple-antenna systems. As a result, joint CE-MUDD can provide significant performance gains, compared to the receivers based on one-shot channel estimation.Comment: The paper was resubmitted to IEEE Trans. Inf. Theor

On an Achievable Rate of Large Rayleigh Block-Fading MIMO Channels with No CSI

Training-based transmission over Rayleigh block-fading multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels is investigated. As a training method a combination of a pilot-assisted scheme and a biased signaling scheme is considered. The achievable rates of successive decoding (SD) receivers based on the linear minimum mean-squared error (LMMSE) channel estimation are analyzed in the large-system limit, by using the replica method under the assumption of replica symmetry. It is shown that negligible pilot information is best in terms of the achievable rates of the SD receivers in the large-system limit. The obtained analytical formulas of the achievable rates can improve the existing lower bound on the capacity of the MIMO channel with no channel state information (CSI), derived by Hassibi and Hochwald, for all signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). The comparison between the obtained bound and a high SNR approximation of the channel capacity, derived by Zheng and Tse, implies that the high SNR approximation is unreliable unless quite high SNR is considered. Energy efficiency in the low SNR regime is also investigated in terms of the power per information bit required for reliable communication. The required minimum power is shown to be achieved at a positive rate for the SD receiver with no CSI, whereas it is achieved in the zero-rate limit for the case of perfect CSI available at the receiver. Moreover, numerical simulations imply that the presented large-system analysis can provide a good approximation for not so large systems. The results in this paper imply that SD schemes can provide a significant performance gain in the low-to-moderate SNR regimes, compared to conventional receivers based on one-shot channel estimation.Comment: re-submitted to IEEE Trans. Inf. Theor