2

Channel Estimation for Wireless

OFDM Communications
Jia-Chin Lin
National Central University
Taiwan

1. Introduction
1.1 Preliminary
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) communication techniques have
recently received significant research attention because of their ability to maintain effective
transmission and highly efficient bandwidth utilization in the presence of various channel
impairments, such as severely frequency-selective channel fades caused by long multipath
delay spreads and impulsive noise (Bingham, 1990; Zou & Wu, 1995). In an OFDM system, a
high-rate serial information-bearing symbol stream is split into many low-rate parallel
streams; each of these streams individually modulates a mutually orthogonal sub-carrier.
The spectrum of an individual sub-channel overlaps with those expanded from the adjacent
sub-channels. However, the OFDM sub-carriers are orthogonal as long as they are
synthesized such that the frequency separation between any two adjacent sub-carriers is
exactly equal to the reciprocal of an OFDM block duration. A discrete Fourier transform
(DFT) operation can perfectly produce this sub-carrier arrangement and its relevant
modulations (Darlington, 1970; Weinstein & Ebert, 1971). Because of the advanced
technologies incorporated into integrated circuit (IC) chips and digital signal processors
(DSPs), OFDM has become a practical way to implement very effective modulation
techniques for various applications. As a result, OFDM technologies have recently been
chosen as candidates for 4th-generation (4G) mobile communications in a variety of
standards, such as IEEE 802.16 (Marks, 2008) and IEEE 802.20 (Klerer, 2005) in the United
States, and international research projects, such as EU-IST-MATRICE (MATRICE, 2005) and
EU-IST-4MORE (4MORE, 2005) for 4G mobile communication standardization in Europe.
Regarding the history of OFDM, recall that Chang published a paper on the synthesis of
band-limited signals for parallel multi-channel transmission in the 1960s (Chang, 1966). The
author investigated a technique for transmitting and receiving (transceiving) parallel
information through a linear band-limited channel without inter-channel interference (ICI)
or inter-symbol interference (ISI). Saltzberg then conducted relevant performance
evaluations and analyses (Saltzberg, 1967).

1.2 IFFT and FFT utilization: A/D realization of OFDM

A significant breakthrough in OFDM applicability was presented by Weinstein and Ebert in
1971 (Weinstein & Ebert, 1971). First, DFT and inverse DFT (IDFT) techniques were applied
Source: Communications and Networking, Book edited by: Jun Peng,
ISBN 978-953-307-114-5, pp. 434, September 2010, Sciyo, Croatia, downloaded from SCIYO.COM

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18 Communications and Networking

to OFDM implementation to perform base-band parallel sub-channel modulations and

demodulations (or multiplexing and demultiplexing) (Weinstein & Ebert, 1971). This study
provided an effective discrete-time signal processing method to simultaneously modulate
(and demodulate) signals transmitted (and received) on various sub-channels without
requiring the implementation of a bank of sub-carrier modulators with many analog
multipliers and oscillators. Meanwhile, ISI can be significantly reduced by inserting a guard
time-interval (GI) in between any two consecutive OFDM symbols and by applying a raised-
cosine windowing method to the time-domain (TD) signals (Weinstein & Ebert, 1971).
Although the system studied in this work cannot always maintain orthogonality among
sub-carriers when operated over a time-dispersive channel, the application of IDFT and DFT
to OFDM communication is not only a crucial contribution but also a critical driving force
for commercial applicability of recent wireless OFDM communication because the fast
algorithms of IDFT and DFT, i.e., inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) and fast Fourier
transform (FFT), have been commercialized and popularly implemented with ASICs or sub-
functions on DSPs.

1.3 Cyclic prefix

Orthogonality among sub-carriers cannot be maintained when an OFDM system operates
over a time-dispersive channel. This problem was first addressed by Peled and Ruiz in 1980
(Peled & Ruiz, 1980). Rather than inserting a blank GI between any two consecutive OFDM
symbols, which was the method employed in the previous study (Weinstein & Ebert, 1971),
a cyclic extension of an OFDM block is inserted into the original GI as a prefix to an
information-bearing OFDM block. The adopted cyclic prefix (CP) effectively converts the
linear convolution of the transmitted symbol and the channel impulse response (CIR) into
the cyclic convolution; thus, orthogonality among sub-carriers can be maintained with
channel time-dispersion if the CP is sufficiently longer than the CIR. However, energy
efficiency is inevitably sacrificed, as the CPs convey no desired information.

1.4 Applications
OFDM technology is currently employed in the European digital audio broadcasting (DAB)
standard (DAB, 1995). In addition, digital TV broadcasting applications based on OFDM
technology have been under comprehensive investigation (DVB, 1996; Couasnon et al., 1994;
Marti et al., 1993; Moeneclaey & Bladel, 1993; Tourtier et al., 1993). Furthermore, OFDM
technology in conjunction with other multiple-access techniques, in particular code-division
multiple-access (CDMA) techniques, for mobile communications has also been the focus of a
variety of research efforts (Hara & Prasad, 1997; Sourour & Nakagawa, 1996; Kondo &
Milstein, 1996; Reiners & Rohling, 1994; Fazel, 1994). For those employed in wireline
environments, OFDM communication systems are often called “Discrete Multi-Tone”
(DMT) communications, which have also attracted a great deal of research attention as a
technology that effectively achieves high-rate transmission on currently existing telephone
networks (Bingham, 1990; Young et al., 1996; Chow, 1993; Tu, 1991). One of the major
advantages of the OFDM technique is its robustness with multipath reception. OFDM
applications often are expected to operate in a severely frequency-selective environment.
Therefore, OFDM communication has recently been selected for various broadband mobile
communications, e.g., 4G mobile communications. This chapter will focus on such
applications.

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Channel Estimation for Wireless OFDM Communications 19

1.5 System description and signal modelling

The primary idea behind OFDM communication is dividing an occupied frequency band
into many parallel sub-channels to deliver information simultaneously. By maintaining
sufficiently narrow sub-channel bandwidths, the signal propagating through an individual
sub-channel experiences roughly frequency-flat (i.e., frequency-nonselective) channel fades.
This arrangement can significantly reduce the complexity of the subsequent equalization
sub-system. In particular, current broadband wireless communications are expected to be
able to operate in severe multipath fading environments in which long delay spreads
inherently exist because the signature/chip duration has become increasingly shorter. To
enhance spectral (or bandwidth) efficiency, the spectra of adjacent sub-channels are set to
overlap with one another. Meanwhile, the orthogonality among sub-carriers is maintained
by setting the sub-carrier spacing (i.e., the frequency separation between two consecutive
sub-carriers) to the reciprocal of an OFDM block duration.
By taking advantage of a CP, the orthogonality can be prevented from experiencing ICI even
for transmission over a multipath channel (Peled & Ruiz, 1980). Although several variants of
OFDM communication systems exist (Bingham, 1990; Weinstein & Ebert, 1971; Floch et al.,
1995), CP-OFDM (Peled & Ruiz, 1980) is primarily considered in this section due to its
popularity. A CP is obtained from the tail portion of an OFDM block and then prefixed into
a transmitted block, as shown in Fig. 1.

Duplicate

Cyclic
prefix
Time
Axis
GI or CP OFDM Block

Fig. 1. An OFDM symbol consisting of a CP and an information-bearing OFDM block.

A portion of the transmitted OFDM symbol becomes periodic. The CP insertion converts the
linear convolution of the CIR and the transmitted symbol into the circular convolution of the
two. Therefore, CPs can avoid both ISI and ICI (Bingham, 1990). In this fundamental section,
the following assumptions are made for simplicity: (1) a cyclic prefix is used; (2) the CIR
length does not exceed the CP length; (3) the received signal can be perfectly synchronized;
(4) noise is complex-valued, additive, white Gaussian noise (AWGN); and (5) channel time-
variation is slow, so the channel can be considered to be constant or static within a few
OFDM symbols.

1.5.1 Continuous-time model

A continuous-time base-band equivalent representation of an OFDM transceiver is depicted
in Fig. 2. The OFDM communication system under study consists of N sub-carriers that
occupy a total bandwidth of B = T1 Hz. The length of an OFDM symbol is set to Tsym
s
seconds; moreover, an OFDM symbol is composed of an OFDM block of length T = NTs and
a CP of length Tg. The transmitting filter on the kth sub-carrier can be written as

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20 Communications and Networking

⎧ 1 j 2π NB k(t −Tg )
⎪ 0 ≤ t ≤ Tsym
pk (t ) = ⎨ T
e
⎪0
(1)
⎩ otherwise,

where Tsym = T + Tg. Note that pk(t) = pk(t+ T) when t is within the guard interval [0,Tg]. It can
be seen from Equation 1 that pk(t) is a rectangular pulse modulated by a sub-carrier with
B . The transmitted signal s (t) for the ith OFDM symbol can thus be obtained
frequency k · N i
by summing over all modulated signals, i.e.,

∑ X k ,i pk ( t − iTsym ),
N −1
si (t ) = (2)
k =0

where X0,i,X1,i, ··· ,XN−1,i are complex-valued information-bearing symbols, whose values are
often mapped according to quaternary phase-shift keying (QPSK) or quadrature amplitude
modulation (QAM). Therefore, the transmitted signal s(t) can be considered to be a sequence
of OFDM symbols, i.e.,

∑ si (t )
∞
s(t ) =

( )
i =−∞

∑ ∑ Xk ,i pk t − iTsym .
∞ N −1
(3)
=
i =−∞ k = 0

Transmitting Receiving
Filter Bank Filter Bank

X0,i p1 ( t ) q1 ( t ) Y0,i
Tsym
w( t)
p2 ( t ) q2 ( t ) Y1,i
X1,i
s( t) r ( t) Tsym
h ( τ , t)

Multipath Channel

X N − 1,i p N − 1 ( t) YN − 1,i
q N − 1 ( t)
Tsym
Sampler

Fig. 2. Continuous-time base-band equivalent representation of an OFDM transceiver.

If the length of the CIR h(τ, t) does not exceed the CP length Tg, the received signal r(t) can
be written as

r (t ) = ( h ∗ s ) (t ) + w(t )

= ∫ h(τ , t )s(t − τ )dτ + w(t ),

Tg
(4)

where the operator “∗” represents the linear convolution and w(t) is an AWGN.
At the receiving end, a bank of filters is employed to match the last part [Tg,Tsym] of the
transmitted waveforms pk(t) on a subchannel-by-subchannel basis. By taking advantage of

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Channel Estimation for Wireless OFDM Communications 21

matched filter (MF) theory, the receiving filter on the kth sub-channel can be designed to

( )
have the following impulse response:

⎪⎧ p T − t , 0 ≤ t < T = Tsym − Tg
∗
q k (t ) = ⎨ k sym
⎪⎩ 0,
(5)
otherwise.

Because the CP can effectively separate symbol dispersion from preceding or succeeding
symbols, the sampled outputs of the receiving filter bank convey negligible ISI. The time
index i can be dropped for simplicity because the following derivations address the received
signals on a symbol-by-symbol basis and the ISI is considered to be negligible. Using
Equations 3, 4 and 5, the sampled output of the kth receiving MF can be written as

= ( r ∗ q k ) (t )
t =Tsym
Yk

∫ r(ς )q k (Tsym − ς ) dς
∞
=
−∞
Tsym ⎛ Tg ⎞
⎜ h (τ , t ) s (ς − τ ) dτ + w(ς ) ⎟ p∗ (ς )dς
= ∫ ⎜∫
(6)

Tg ⎝ 0
⎟ k
⎠
Tsym ⎛ Tg
⎤ ⎞
= ∫ ⎜ ∫ h (τ , t ) ⎢ ∑ X l pl (ς − τ ) ⎥ dτ ⎟ p∗k (ς )dς + ∫ w(ς ) p∗k (ς )dς .
⎡N −1
Tsym

⎜
Tg ⎝ 0 ⎣ l=0 ⎦ ⎟⎠ Tg

few OFDM symbols. Therefore, the CIR can be further represented as h(τ). Equation 6 can
It is assumed that although the CIR is time-varying, it does not significantly change within a

thus be rewritten as

Tsym ⎛ Tg ⎞
∑ Xl ∫ ⎜ ∫0 ∫ w(ς )pk (ς )dς .
N −1
Yk = ⎜ h(τ )pl (ς − τ )dτ ⎟ p∗k (ς )dς +
Tsym
∗
⎟
(7)
l =0 Tg ⎝ ⎠ Tg

From Equation 7, if Tg < ς < Tsym and 0 < τ < Tg, then 0 < ς − τ < Tsym. Therefore, by
substituting Equation 1 into Equation 7, the inner-most integral of Equation 7 can be
reformulated as

∫ h(τ )pl (ς − τ ) dτ
j 2π l(ς −τ −Tg ) B/N
= ∫ h(τ ) dτ
Tg Tg
e
0 0 T
j 2π l(ς −Tg ) B/N Tg

∫ h(τ )e
(8)
= − j 2π lτ B/N
dτ , Tg < ς < Tsym .
e
T 0

Furthermore, the integration in Equation 8 can be considered to be the channel weight of the
lth sub-channel, whose sub-carrier frequency is f = lB/N, i.e.,

∫ h(τ )e
⎛ B⎞
Hl = H ⎜ l ⎟ = − j 2π lτ B/N
dτ ,
Tg

⎝ N⎠
(9)
0

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22 Communications and Networking

h(τ). The output of the kth receiving MF can therefore be rewritten as

where H( f ) denotes the channel transfer function (CTF) and is thus the Fourier transform of

∑ Xl
j 2π l(ς −Tg ) B/N

∫ ∫
N −1
= H l p∗k (ς )dς + w(ς )p∗k (ς )dς
Tsym Tsym
e
Yk
l =0 Tg T Tg

∑ Xl H l ∫
(10)
N −1
= pl (ς )p∗k (ς )dς + Wk ,
Tsym

l =0 Tg

where

Wk = ∫ w(ς )p∗k (ς )dς .

Tsym
Tg

The transmitting filters pk(t), k = 0,1, ··· ,N − 1 employed here are mutually orthogonal, i.e.,

j 2π l( t −Tg ) B/N − j 2π k ( t −Tg ) B/N

∫ = ∫
Tsym Tsym

pl (t )p∗k (t )dt
e e
dt
T T (11)
= δ [ k − l ],
Tg Tg

where

⎧1 k=l
δ [ k − l] = ⎨
⎩0 otherwise

is the Kronecker delta function. Therefore, Equation 10 can be reformulated as

Yk = H k X k + Wk , k = 0,1, , N − 1, (12)

where Wk is the AWGN of the kth sub-channel. As a result, the OFDM communication
system can be considered to be a set of parallel frequency-flat (frequency-nonselective)
fading sub-channels with uncorrelated noise, as depicted in Fig. 3.
H0,i W0,i

X0,i Y0,i

H1,i
W1,i

X1,i Y1,i

HN − 1,i WN − 1,i

X N − 1,i YN − 1,i

Fig. 3. OFDM communication is converted to transmission over parallel frequency-flat

sub-channels.

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Channel Estimation for Wireless OFDM Communications 23

1.5.2 Discrete-time model

A fully discrete-time representation of the OFDM communication system studied here is
depicted in Fig. 4. The modulation and demodulation operations in the continuous-time
model have been replaced by IDFT and DFT operations, respectively, and the channel has
been replaced by a discrete-time channel.

X0,i Y0,i
w[n ]
X1,i Y1,i

Cyclic Cyclic
s[n ] r [n ]
IDFT P/S Prefix h[m, n ] Prefix S/P DFT

Insertion Removal

X N − 1,i YN − 1,i

Fig. 4. Discrete-time representation of a base-band equivalent OFDM communication

system.
If the CP is longer than the CIR, then the linear convolution operation can be converted to a
cyclic convolution. The cyclic convolution is denoted as ‘⊗’ in this chapter. The ith block of
the received signals can be written as

{
= DFTN IDFTN {X i } ⊗ hi + w i }
= DFTN {IDFTN {X i } ⊗ hi } + Wi ,
Yi
(13)

where Yi = [Y0,i Y1,i ··· YN−1,i]T is an N × 1 vector, and its elements represent N demodulated
symbols; Xi = [X0,i X1,i ··· XN−1,i]T is an N × 1 vector, and its elements represent N
transmitted information-bearing symbols; hi = [h0,i h1,i ··· hN−1,i]T is an N × 1 vector, and its
elements represent the CIR padded with sufficient zeros to have N dimensions; and
wi = [w0,i w1,i ··· wN−1,i]T is an N × 1 vector representing noise. Because the noise is assumed to
be white, Gaussian and circularly symmetric, the noise term

Wi = DFTN ( w i ) (14)

represents uncorrelated Gaussian noise, and Wk,i and wn,i can be proven to have the same
variance according to the Central Limit Theorem (CLT). Furthermore, if a new operator ”☼”
is defined to be element-by-element multiplication, Equation 13 can be rewritten as

Yi = Xi DFTN {hi } + Wi
= Xi Hi + Wi ,
(15)

where Hi = DFTN {hi} is the CTF. As a result, the same set of parallel frequency-flat sub-
channels with noise as presented in the continuous-time model can be obtained.
Both the aforementioned continuous-time and discrete-time representations provide insight
and serve the purpose of providing a friendly first step or entrance point for beginning
readers. In my personal opinion, researchers that have more experience in communication
fields may be more comfortable with the continuous-time model because summations,
integrations and convolutions are employed in the modulation, demodulation and (CIR)

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24 Communications and Networking

filtering processes. Meanwhile, researchers that have more experience in signal processing
fields may be more comfortable with the discrete-time model because vector and matrix
operations are employed in the modulation, demodulation and (CIR) filtering processes.
Although the discrete-time model may look neat, clear and reader-friendly, several
presumptions should be noted and kept in mind. It is assumed that the symbol shaping is
rectangular and that the frequency offset, ISI and ICI are negligible. The primary goal of this
chapter is to highlight concepts and provide insight to beginning researchers and practical
engineers rather than covering theories or theorems. As a result, the derivations shown in
Sections 3 and 4 are close to the continuous-time representation, and those in Sections 5 and
6 are derived from the discrete-time representation.

2. Introduction to channel estimation on wireless OFDM communications

2.1 Preliminary
In practice, effective channel estimation (CE) techniques for coherent OFDM
communications are highly desired for demodulating or detecting received signals,
improving system performance and tracking time-varying multipath channels, especially
for mobile OFDM because these techniques often operate in environments where signal
reception is inevitably accompanied by wide Doppler spreads caused by dynamic
surroundings and long multipath delay spreads caused by time-dispersion. Significant
research efforts have focused on addressing various CE and subsequent equalization
problems by estimating sub-channel gains or the CIR. CE techniques in OFDM systems
often exploit several pilot symbols transceived at given locations on the frequency-time grid
to determine the relevant channel parameters. Several previous studies have investigated
the performance of CE techniques assisted by various allocation patterns of the
pilot/training symbols (Coleri et al., 2002; Li et al., 2002; Yeh & Lin, 1999; Negi & Cioffi,
1998). Meanwhile, several prior CEs have simultaneously exploited both time-directional
and frequency-directional correlations in the channel under investigation (Hoeher et al.,
1997; Wilson et al., 1994; Hoeher, 1991). In practice, these two-dimensional (2D) estimators
require 2D Wiener filters and are often too complicated to be implemented. Moreover, it is
difficult to achieve any improvements by using a 2D estimator, while significant
computational complexity is added (Sandell & Edfors, 1996). As a result, serially exploiting
the correlation properties in the time and frequency directions may be preferred (Hoeher,
1991) for reduced complexity and good estimation performance. In mobile environments,
channel tap-weighting coefficients often change rapidly. Thus, the comb-type pilot pattern,
in which pilot symbols are inserted and continuously transmitted over specific pilot sub-
channels in all OFDM blocks, is naturally preferred and highly desirable for effectively and
accurately tracking channel time-variations (Negi & Cioffi, 1998; Wilson et al., 1994; Hoeher,
1991; Hsieh & Wei, 1998).
Several methods for allocating pilots on the time-frequency grid have been studied
(Tufvesson & Maseng, 1997). Two primary pilot assignments are depicted in Fig. 5: the
block-type pilot arrangement (BTPA), shown in Fig. 5(a), and the comb-type pilot
arrangement (CTPA), shown in Fig. 5(b). In the BTPA, pilot signals are assigned in specific
OFDM blocks to occupy all sub-channels and are transmitted periodically. Both in general
and in theory, BTPA is more suitable in a slowly time-varying, but severely frequency-
selective fading environment. No interpolation method in the FD is required because the
pilot block occupies the whole band. As a result, the BTPA is relatively insensitive to severe

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Channel Estimation for Wireless OFDM Communications 25

Subcarrier Index
Subcarrier Index

Symbol Index Symbol Index

(a) Block-Type Pilot Arrangement (b) Comb-Type Pilot Arrangement
Fig. 5. Two primary pilot assignment methods
frequency selectivity in a multipath fading channel. Estimates of the CIR can usually be
obtained by least-squares (LS) or minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) estimations
conducted with assistance from the pilot symbols (Edfors et al., 1996; Van de Beek et al.,
1995).
In the CTPA, pilot symbols are often uniformly distributed over all sub-channels in each
OFDM symbol. Therefore, the CTPA can provide better resistance to channel time-
variations. Channel weights on non-pilot (data) sub-channels have to be estimated by
interpolating or smoothing the estimates of the channel weights obtained on the pilot sub-
channels (Zhao & Huang, 1997; Rinne & Renfors, 1996). Therefore, the CTPA is, both in
general and in theory, sensitive to the frequency-selectivity of a multipath fading channel.
The CTPA is adopted to assist the CE conducted in each OFDM block in Sections 3 and 4,
while the BTPA is discussed in Section 5.

2.2 CTPA-based CE
Conventional CEs assisted by comb-type pilot sub-channels are often performed completely
in the frequency domain (FD) and include two steps: jointly estimating the channel gains on
all pilot sub-channels and smoothing the obtained estimates to interpolate the channel gains
on data (non-pilot) sub-channels. The CTPA CE technique (Hsieh & Wei, 1998) and the
pilot-symbol-assisted modulation (PSAM) CE technique (Edfors et al., 1998) have been
shown to be practical and applicable methods for mobile OFDM communication because
their ability to track rapidly time-varying channels is much better than that of a BTPA CE
technique. Several modified variants for further improvements and for complexity or rank
reduction by means of singular-value-decomposition (SVD) techniques have been
investigated previously (Hsieh & Wei, 1998; Edfors et al., 1998; Seller, 2004; Edfors et al.,
1996; Van de Beek et al., 1995; Park et al., 2004). In addition, a more recent study has
proposed improving CE performance by taking advantage of presumed slowly varying
properties in the delay subspace (Simeone et al., 2004). This technique employs an
intermediate step between the LS pilot sub-channel estimation step and the data sub-
channel interpolation step in conventional CE approaches (Hsieh & Wei, 1998; Edfors et al.,
1998; Seller, 2004; Edfors et al., 1996; Van de Beek et al., 1995; Park et al., 2004) to track the
delay subspace to improve the accuracy of the pilot sub-channel estimation. However, this

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26 Communications and Networking

technique is based on the strong assumption that the multipath delays are slowly time-
varying and can easily be estimated separately from the channel gain estimation. A prior
channel estimation study (Minn & Bhargava, 2000) also exploited CTPA and TD CE. The
proposed technique (Minn & Bhargava, 2000) was called the Frequency-Pilot-Time-Average
(FPTA) method. However, time-averaging over a period that may be longer than the
coherence time of wireless channels to suppress interference not only cannot work for
wireless applications with real-time requirements but may also be impractical in a mobile
channel with a short coherence time. A very successful technique that takes advantage of TD
CE has been proposed (Minn & Bhargava, 1999). However, this technique focused on
parameter estimation to transmit diversity using space-time coding in OFDM systems, and
the parameter settings were not obtained from any recent mobile communication standards.
To make fair comparisons of the CE performance and to avoid various diversity or space-
time coding methods, only uncoded OFDM with no diversity is addressed in this chapter.
The CTPA is also employed as the framework of the technique studied in Sections 3 and 4
because of its effectiveness in mobile OFDM communications with rapidly time-varying,
frequency-selective fading channels. A least-squares estimation (LSE) approach is
performed serially on a block-by-block basis in the TD, not only to accurately estimate the
CIR but also to effectively track rapid CIR variations. In fact, a generic estimator is thus
executed on each OFDM block without assistance from a priori channel information (e.g.,
correlation functions in the frequency and/or in the time directions) and without increasing
computational complexity.
Many previous studies (Edfors et al., 1998; Seller, 2004; Edfors et al., 1996; Van de Beek et al.,
1995; Simeone et al., 2004) based on CTPA were derived under the assumption of perfect
timing synchronization. In practice, some residual timing error within several sampling
durations inevitably occurs during DFT demodulation, and this timing error leads to extra
phase errors that phase-rotate demodulated symbols. Although a method that solves this
problem in conventional CTPA OFDM CEs has been studied (Hsieh & Wei, 1998; Park et al.,
2004), this method can work only under some special conditions (Hsieh & Wei, 1998).
Compared with previous studies (Edfors et al., 1998; Seller, 2004; Edfors et al., 1996; Van de
Beek et al., 1995; Simeone et al., 2004), the studied technique can be shown to achieve better
resistance to residual timing errors because it does not employ a priori channel information
and thus avoids the model mismatch and extra phase rotation problems that result from
residual timing errors. Also, because the studied technique performs ideal data sub-channel
interpolation with a domain-transformation approach, it can effectively track extra phase
rotations with no phase lag.

2.3 BTPA-based CE
Single-carrier frequency-division multiple-access (SC-FDMA) communication was selected
for the long-term evolution (LTE) specification in the third-generation partnership project
(3GPP). SC-FDMA has been the focus of research and development because of its ability to
maintain a low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), particularly in the uplink transmission,
which is one of a few problems in recent 4G mobile communication standardization.
Meanwhile, SC-FDMA can maintain high throughput and low equalization complexity like
orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) (Myung et al., 2006). Moreover,
SC-FDMA can be thought of as an OFDMA with DFT pre-coded or pre-spread inputs. In a
SC-FDMA uplink scenario, information-bearing symbols in the TD from any individual user
terminal are pre-coded (or pre-spread) with a DFT. The DFT-spread resultant symbols can

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Channel Estimation for Wireless OFDM Communications 27

be transformed into the FD. Finally, the DFT-spread symbols are fed into an IDFT
multiplexer to accomplish FDM.
Although the CTPA is commonly adopted in wireless communication applications, such as
IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.16e and the EU-IST-4MORE project, the BTPA is
employed in the LTE. As shown in the LTE specification, 7 symbols form a slot, and 20 slots
form a frame that spans 10 ms in the LTE uplink transmission. In each slot, the 4th symbol is
used to transmit a pilot symbol. Section 5 employs BTPA as the framework to completely
follow the LTE specifications. A modified Kalman filter- (MKF-) based TD CE approach
with fast fading channels has been proposed previously (Han et al., 2004). The MKF-based
TD CE tracks channel variations by taking advantage of MKF and TD MMSE equalizers. A
CE technique that also employs a Kalman filter has been proposed (Li et al., 2008). Both
methods successfully address the CE with high Doppler spreads.
The demodulation reference signal adopted for CE in LTE uplink communication is
generated from Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sequences. ZC sequences, which are generalized chirp-like
poly-phase sequences, have some beneficial properties according to previous studies (Ng et
al., 1998; Popovic, 1992). ZC sequences are also commonly used in radar applications and as
synchronization signals in LTE, e.g., random access and cell search (Levanon & Mozeson,
2004; LTE, 2009). A BTPA-based CE technique is discussed in great detail in Section 5.

2.4 TD-redundancy-based CE
Although the mobile communication applications mentioned above are all based on cyclic-
prefix OFDM (CP-OFDM) modulation techniques, several encouraging contributions have
investigated some alternatives, e.g., zero-padded OFDM (ZP-OFDM) (Muquest et al., 2002;
Muquet et al., 2000) and pseudo-random-postfix OFDM (PRP-OFDM) (Muck et al., 2006;
2005; 2003) to replace the TD redundancy with null samples or known/pre-determined
sequences. It has been found that significant improvements over CP-OFDM can be realized
with either ZP-OFDM or PRP-OFDM (Muquest et al., 2002; Muquet et al., 2000; Muck et al.,
2006; 2005; 2003). In previous works, ZP-OFDM has been shown to maintain symbol
recovery irrespective of null locations on a multipath channel (Muquest et al., 2002; Muquet
et al., 2000). Meanwhile, PRP-OFDM replaces the null samples originally inserted between
any two OFDM blocks in ZP-OFDM by a known sequence. Thus, the receiver can use the a
priori knowledge of a fraction of transmitted blocks to accurately estimate the CIR and
effectively reduce the loss of transmission rate with frequent, periodic training sequences
(Muck et al., 2006; 2005; 2003). A more recent OFDM variant, called Time-Domain
Synchronous OFDM (TDS-OFDM) was investigated in terrestrial broadcasting applications
(Gui et al., 2009; Yang et al., 2008; Zheng & Sun, 2008; Liu & Zhang, 2007; Song et al., 2005).
TDS-OFDM works similarly to the PRP-OFDM and also belongs to this category of CEs
assisted by TD redundancy.
Several research efforts that address various PRP-OFDM CE and/or subsequent
equalization problems have been undertaken (Muck et al., 2006; 2005; 2003; Ma et al., 2006).
However, these studies were performed only in the context of a wireless local area network
(WLAN), in which multipath fading and Doppler effects are not as severe as in mobile
communication. In addition, the techniques studied in previous works (Muck et al., 2006;
2005; 2003; Ma et al., 2006) take advantage of a time-averaging method to replace statistical
expectation operations and to suppress various kinds of interference, including inter-block
interference (IBI) and ISI. However, these moving-average-based interference suppression
methods investigated in the previous studies (Muck et al., 2006; 2005; 2003; Ma et al., 2006)

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28 Communications and Networking

cannot function in the mobile environment because of rapid channel variation and real-time
requirements. In fact, it is difficult to design an effective moving-average filter (or an
integrate-and-dump (I/D) filter) for the previous studies (Muck et al., 2006; 2005; 2003; Ma
et al., 2006) because the moving-average filter must have a sufficiently short time-averaging
duration (i.e., sufficiently short I/D filter impulse response) to accommodate both the time-
variant behaviors of channel tap-weighting coefficients and to keep the a priori statistics of
the PRP unchanged for effective CE and must also have a sufficiently long time-averaging
duration (i.e., sufficiently long I/D filter impulse response) to effectively suppress various
kinds of interference and reduce AWGN.
A previous work (Ohno & Giannakis, 2002) investigated an optimum training pattern for
generic block transmission over time-frequency selective channels. It has been proven that
the TD training sequences must be placed with equal spacing to minimize mean-square
errors. However, the work (Ohno & Giannakis, 2002) was still in the context of WLAN and
broadcasting applications, and no symbol recovery method was studied. As shown in
Section 6, the self-interference that occurs with symbol recovery and signal detection must
be further eliminated by means of the SIC method.

3. Frequency-domain channel estimation based on comb-type pilot

arrangement
3.1 System description
The block diagram of the OFDM transceiver under study is depicted in Fig. 6. Information-
bearing bits are grouped and mapped according to Gray encoding to become
multi-amplitude-multi-phase symbols. After pilot symbol insertion, the block of data
{Xk, k = 0, 1, ··· , N −1} is then fed into the IDFT (or IFFT) modulator. Thus, the modulated
symbols {xn, n = 0, 1, ··· , N − 1} can be expressed as

∑ X k e j 2π kn/N ,
N −1
xn = n = 0,1, , N − 1,
1
(16)
N k =0

where N is the number of sub-channels. In the above equation, it is assumed that there are
no virtual sub-carriers, which provide guard bands, in the studied OFDM system. A CP is
arranged in front of an OFDM symbol to avoid ISI and ICI, and the resultant symbol
{xcp,n, n = −L,−L+ 1, ··· ,N −1} can thus be expressed as

⎧x n = −L , −L + 1, , −1
xcp , n = ⎨ N + n
⎩ xn n = 0,1, , N − 1,
(17)

where L denotes the number of CP samples. The transmitted signal is then fed into a
multipath fading channel with CIR h[m,n]. The received signal can thus be represented as

ycp [n] = xcp [n] ⊗ h[m , n] + w[n ], (18)

where w[n] denotes the AWGN. The CIR h[m,n] can be expressed as (Steele, 1999)

∑ α i e j 2π ν nT δ [mTs − τ i ],
M −1
h[m , n] = i s
(19)
i =0

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Channel Estimation for Wireless OFDM Communications 29

where M denotes the number of resolvable propagation paths, αi represents the ith complex
channel weight of the CIR, νi denotes the maximum Doppler frequency on the ith resolvable
propagation path, m is the index in the delay domain, n is the time index, and τi denotes the
delay of the ith resolvable path.
Xk xn xcp,n

Signal
Pilot D/A
Mapping
Bit S/P IFFT CP P/S +
with Tone
Stream Gray Insertion Tx
Insertion
Encoding Filter

Channel h

Yk yn ycp,n
w
Signal
Per Rx AWGN
Demapping Sub
Bit CP Filter
with P/S Channel FFT S/P
Stream Gray Removal +
Equalizer A/D
Decoding
Fig. 6. A base-band equivalent block diagram of the studied OFDM transceiver.
After the CP portion is effectively removed from ycp,n, the received samples yn are sifted and
fed into the DFT demodulator to simultaneously demodulate the signals propagating
through the multiple sub-channels. The demodulated symbol obtained on the kth sub-
channel can thus be written as

∑ yn e− j 2π kn/N ,
N −1
Yk = k = 0,1, , N − 1.
1
(20)
N n=0

If the CP is sufficiently longer than the CIR, then the ISI among OFDM symbols can be
neglected. Therefore, Yk can be reformulated as (Zhao & Huang, 1997; Hsieh & Wei, 1998)

Yk = X k H k + I k + Wk , k = 0,1, , N − 1, (21)
where

sin (π ν iT )
∑ α i e jπ νiT
M −1 2πτ i
−j
= N
π ν iT
k
Hk e N ,
i =0

∑ αi ∑
2πτ i
1 − e j 2π ( ν iT + k − k )
M −1 N −1 ′ −j k′
= X ( k ′) k = 0,1, ,N − 1
(22)
1
2π
Ik e N ,
′= ( ν iT + k ′ − k )
1−e
N i =0 k 0 j
k ′≠ k
N

and {Wk, k = 0,1, ··· , N − 1} is the Fourier transform of {wn, n = 0,1, ··· , N − 1}.
The symbols {Yp,k} received on the pilot sub-channels can be obtained from {Yk, k = 0, 1, ··· ,
N − 1}, the channel weights on the pilot sub-channels {Hp,k} can be estimated, and then the
channel weights on the data (non-pilot) sub-channels can be obtained by interpolating or
smoothing the obtained estimates of the pilot sub-channel weights Hp,k. The transmitted
information-bearing symbols {Xk, k=0, 1, ··· , N−1} can be recovered by simply dividing the
received symbols by the corresponding channel weights, i.e.,

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30 Communications and Networking

Xˆ k = k , k = 0,1, , N − 1,
Y
(22)
Hˆ k

where Hˆ k is an estimate of Hk. Eventually, the source binary data may be reconstructed by
means of signal demapping.

3.2 Pilot sub-channel estimation

In the CTPA, the Np pilot signals Xp,m, m = 0,1, ··· ,Np − 1 are inserted into the FD transmitted
symbols Xk, k = 0,1, ··· ,N − 1 with equal separation. In other words, the total N sub-carriers
are divided into Np groups, each of which contains Q = N/Np contiguous sub-carriers.
Within any group of sub-carriers, the first sub-carrier, with the lowest central frequency, is
adopted to transmit pilot signals. The value of ρ = Q−1 denotes the pilot density employed in
the OFDM communication studied here. The pilot density ρ represents the portion of the
entire bandwidth that is employed to transmit the pilots, and it must be as low as possible to

sets a lower bound on the pilot density ρ that allows the CTF to be effectively reconstructed
maintain sufficiently high bandwidth efficiency. However, the Nyquist sampling criterion

with a subcarrier-domain (i.e., FD) interpolation approach. The OFDM symbol transmitted
over the kth sub-channel can thus be expressed as

Xk = XmQ + l
⎧⎪ X p , m , l = 0,
=⎨
(23)
⎪⎩information, l = 1, 2, , Q − 1.

The pilot signals {Xp,m, m = 0, 1, ··· , Np − 1} can either be a common complex value or sifted
from a pseudo-random sequence.
The channel weights on the pilot sub-channels can be written in vector form, i.e.,

= ⎡⎣ H p (0) H p (1) H p ( N p − 1)⎤⎦

(( ) )
T
Hp

= ⎡ H (0) H (Q ) H Np − 1 Q ⎤ .
T (24)

⎣⎢ ⎦⎥
The received symbols on the pilot sub-channels obtained after the FFT demodulation can be
expressed as

Yp = ⎡Yp ,0 Yp ,1 Yp , N p − 1 ⎤ .
⎣ ⎦
T
(25)

Moreover, Yp can be rewritten as

Yp = X p ⋅ H p + I p + Wp , (26)

where
⎡ X p (0) ⎤
⎢ ⎥
0
Xp = ⎢ ⎥,
⎢ 0 X p ( N p − 1)⎥⎦
⎣

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Channel Estimation for Wireless OFDM Communications 31

Ip denotes the ICI vector and Wp denotes the AWGN of the pilot sub-channels.
In conventional CTPA-based CE methods, the estimates of the channel weights of the pilot
sub-channels can be obtained by means of the LS CE, i.e.,

= ⎡⎣ H p ,LS (0) H p ,LS (1) H p ,LS ( N p − 1)⎤⎦

T

( )
HLS
−1
= XH
p Xp p Yp = X p Yp
XH −1
(27)

⎡ Yp (0) Yp (1) Yp ( N p − 1) ⎤
T

=⎢ ⎥ .
⎢⎣ X p (0) X p (1) X p ( N p − 1) ⎥⎦

Although the aforementioned LS CE HLS enjoys low computational complexity, it suffers

from noise enhancement problems, like the zero-forcing equalizer discussed in textbooks.
The MMSE criterion is adopted in CE and equalization techniques, and it exhibits better CE
performance than the LS CE in OFDM communications assisted by block pilots (Van de
Beek et al., 1995). The main drawback of the MMSE CE is its high complexity, which grows
exponentially with the size of the observation samples. In a previous study (Edfors et al.,
1996), a low-rank approximation was applied to a linear minimum-mean-square-error
(LMMSE) CE assisted by FD correlation. The key idea to reduce the complexity is using the
singular-value-decomposition (SVD) technique to derive an optimal low-rank estimation,
the performance of which remains essentially unchanged. The MMSE CE performed on the
pilot sub-channels is formulated as follows (Edfors et al., 1996):

HLMMSE = R Hˆ R −H1 Hˆ H
ˆ

( )
ˆ LS
LS H LS p LS

−1
⎛ −1 ⎞
= R H p H p ⎜ R H p H p + σ w2 X p X H
(28)
⎟ HLS ,
⎝ ⎠
p

where HLS is the LS estimate of Hp derived in Equation 27, σ w2 is the common variance of

{ }
Wk and wn, and the covariance matrices are defined as follows:

= E H pH H

= E{H H },
RHp Hp p ,

= E{H }.
RH ˆ H
ˆ p LS
p H LS

R Hˆ ˆ Hˆ H
ˆ LS LS
LS H LS

It is observed from Equation 28 that a matrix inversion operation is involved in the MMSE
estimator, and it must be calculated symbol by symbol. This problem can be solved by using
a constant pilot, e.g., Xp,m = c, m = 0,1, ··· , Np − 1. A generic CE can be obtained by averaging
over a sufficiently long duration of transmitted symbols (Edfors et al., 1996), i.e.,

β ⎞ ˆ
−1
⎛
HLMMSE = R H p H p ⎜ R H p H p + I ⎟ H
⎝ Γ ⎠
LS , (29)

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32 Communications and Networking

Γ= β=
E{|X p , k |2 }
σ w2
where is the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and

E{|X p , k |2 }E{|1 / X p , k |2 } is a constant determined by the signal mapping method employed

in the pilot symbols. For example, β = 17/9 if 16-QAM is employed in the pilot symbols. If

( )
the auto-correlation matrix R H p H p and the value of the SNR are known in advance,
−1
β
RHp Hp RHpHp + Γ I only needs to be calculated once. As shown in Equation 29, the CE
requires Np complex multiplications per pilot sub-carrier. To further reduce the number of
multiplication operations, a low-rank approximation method based on singular-value
decomposition (SVD) was adopted in the previous study (Edfors et al., 1996). Initially, the
channel correlation matrix can be decomposed as

R H p H p = UΛU H , (30)

where U is a matrix with orthonormal columns u 0 , u 1 , , u N p − 1 , and Λ is a diagonal matrix

with singular values λ0 , λ1 , , λN p − 1 as its diagonal elements. The rank- approximation of
the LMMSE CE derived in Equation 29 can thus be formulated as

⎡Δ 0⎤ H
HSVD = U ⎢ ⎥ U HLS ,
⎣0 0⎦
(31)

where Δ denotes a diagonal matrix with terms that can be expressed as

λk
δk = k = 0,1,
λk + βΓ
, , . (32)

After some manipulation, the CE in Equation 31 requires 2 N p complex multiplications,

and the total number of multiplications per pilot tone becomes 2 . In general, the number
of essential singular values, , is much smaller than the number of pilot sub-channels, Np,
and the computational complexity is therefore considerably reduced when the low-rank
SVD-based CE is compared with the full-rank LMMSE-based CE derived in Equation 29.
Incidentally, low-rank SVD-based CE can combat parameter mismatch problems, as shown
in previous studies (Edfors et al., 1996).

3.3 Data sub-channel interpolation

After joint estimation of the FD channel weights from the pilot sub-channels is complete, the
channel weight estimation on the data (non-pilot) sub-channels must be interpolated from
the pilot sub-channel estimates. A piecewise-linear interpolation method has been studied
(Rinne & Renfors, 1996) that exhibits better CE performance than piecewise-constant
interpolation. A piecewise-linear interpolation (LI) method, a piecewise second-order
polynomial interpolation (SOPI) method and a transform-domain interpolation method are
studied in this sub-section.

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Channel Estimation for Wireless OFDM Communications 33

3.3.1 Linear interpolation

In the linear interpolation method, the channel weight estimates on any two adjacent pilot
sub-channels are employed to determine the channel weight estimates of the data sub-
channel located between the two pilot sub-channels (Rinne & Renfors, 1996). The channel
estimate of the kth data sub-channel can be obtained by the LI method, i.e.,

x = LS , LMMSE, SVD,
⎛ l ⎞
Hˆ LI , x , k = Hˆ LI , x ,mQ + l = ⎜ 1 − ⎟ Hˆ x ,m + Hˆ x ,m + 1 , m = 0,1, , N p − 2,
l
⎝ Q⎠
(33)
1 ≤ l ≤ (Q − 1),
Q

where mQ < k = mQ + l < (m + 1)Q, m = ⎣ Qk ⎦, ⎣· ⎦ denotes the greatest integer less than or
equal to the argument and l is the value of k modulo Q.

3.3.2 Second-order polynomial interpolation

Intuitively, a higher-order polynomial interpolation may fit the CTF better than the
aforementioned first-order polynomial interpolation (LI). The SOPI can be implemented
with a linear, time-invariant FIR filter (Liu & Wei, 1992), and the interpolation can be written
as

Hˆ SOPI , k = Hˆ SOPI , x ,mQ + l

= c 1 Hˆ x , m − 1 + c0 Hˆ x ,m + c −1 Hˆ x ,m + 1 ,
(34)

where

x = LS , LMMSE, SVD, m = 1, 2 , N p − 2, 1 ≤ l ≤ (Q − 1),

ψ( ψ + 1) ψ( ψ − 1)
c1 = , c0 = −(ψ − 1)( ψ + 1), c −1 = ,
2 2
ψ= .
l
N

3.3.3 Transform-domain-processing-based interpolation (TFDI)

An ideal low-pass filtering method based on transform-domain processing was adopted for
the data sub-channel interpolation (Zhao & Huang, 1997). In accordance with the CTPA, the
pilot sub-channels are equally spaced every Q sub-channels. This implies that the coherence
bandwidth of the multipath fading channel under consideration is sufficiently wider than
the bandwidth occupied by Q sub-channels. After the pilot sub-channel estimation was
completed, the interpolation methods mentioned in 3.3.2 and 3.3.3 were used to search for
some low-order-polynomial-based estimations (say, LI and SOPI) of the channel weights of
the data sub-channels. A transform-domain-processing-based interpolation (TFDI) method
proposed in a previous study was used to jointly smooth/filter out the sub-channel weight
estimates of the data sub-channels (Zhao & Huang, 1997). The TFDI method consists of the
following steps: (1) first, it transforms the sub-channel weight estimates obtained from the
pilot sub-channels into the transform domain, which can be thought of as the TD here; (2) it
keeps the essential elements unchanged, which include at most the leading Np (multipath)
components because the coherence bandwidth is as wide as N/Np sub-channels; (3) it sets
the tail (N − Np) components to zero; and (4) finally, it performs the inverse transformation

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