Subspace-based channel estimation for DS/CDMA systems exploiting pulse- shaping information.

Abstract

Third generation wireless systems have adopted Direct-Sequence/Code-Division Multiple-Access (DS/CDMA) as the multiple access scheme of communication. This system would typically operate in a multipath fading channel. This dissertation only deals with the task of channel estimation at the base station where the multipath delays and attenuations for each user are estimated. This information is used to aid the recovery of data that was transmitted by each user. Subspace-based algorithms are popularly used to perform the task of channel estimation because they have the desirable property of perfectly estimating the channel in a noise-free environment. In this dissertation a new subspace-based channel estimation algorithm for DS/CDMA systems is presented. The proposed algorithm is based on the Parametric Subspace algorithm by Perros-Meilhac et al. for single-user systems. The main focus of this dissertation is to convert the Parametric Subspace algorithm from a single-user system to a multi-user DS/CDMA system. It has been shown in the literature that by using information of the pulse-shaping filter in the Channel Subspace algorithm, the variance of the channel estimates is decreased. However, this has only been applied to a single-user system. There are several subspace algorithms that have been proposed for DS/CDMA systems. Most of these algorithms sample the received signal at the chip rate, making it impossible to exploit knowledge of the pulse-shaping filter in the channel estimation algorithm. In this dissertation a new subspace-based channel estimation algorithm is derived for a DS/CDMA system with multiple receive antennas, where the output is oversampled with respect to the chip rate. By oversampling the received signal, knowledge of the pulse-shaping filter is used in the channel estimation algorithm. It is shown that the variance of the channel estimate for the proposed subspace algorithm is less than the Torlak/Xu subspace algorithm that does not exploit information of the pulse-shaping filter. A mathematical expression of the mean square error of estimation for the new algorithm is also derived. It was shown that the analytic expression provides a good approximation of the actual MSE for high SNR. The Parametric Subspace Delay Estimation (PSDE) algorithm was developed by Perros-Meilhac et al. to estimate the multipath delays introduced by the communications channel. The limitation of the PSDE algorithm is that the performance of the algorithm deteriorates as the power of the multipath signals decrease with increasing delay time. This dissertation proposes a modified version of the PSDE algorithm, called the Modified Parametric Subspace Delay Estimation (MPSDE) algorithm, which performs better than the PSDE algorithm in an environment where the power of the multipath signals varies. The final part of this dissertation discusses the Torlak/Xu channel estimation algorithm and the Bensley/Aazbang delay estimation algorithm. In order to compare the performance of these two subspace algorithms, the Torlak/Xu algorithm is converted to a delay estimation algorithm that is called the Parametric TX algorithm. The performance of the Bensley/Aazbang delay estimation algorithm and the proposed Parametric TX algorithm are compared and it is shown that the Parametric TX algorithm offers the better performance.