Joint time synchronization and channel estimation for two-way amplify-and-forward relay systems

The paper presents a method for joint channel and data estimation for transmission over frequency-selective and time-variant channels. Hereby, fast time-variant channels can be tracked, which is important for mobile communications at very high velocities. We approach the problem by estimating the scattering function, which is assumed to be limited in delay and Doppler frequency. At the transmitter, a short training sequence is inserted at the beginning of the data block. This sequence is used for initializing a Kalman filter, which carries out the joint channel and data estimation adaptively. After the training sequence, hypothetical data symbols are considered to extend the persecuted paths in the data tree.

In this paper, a new joint timing and channel estimation scheme is proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing and single carrier block transmission ultra-wideband (UWB) systems. In particular, a new preamble pattern is used for both coarse timing and channel estimation. Despite of the presence of coarse timing error, the estimated channel impulse response (CIR) is simply the cyclic shifted version of the real CIR, thanks to the unique structure of the preamble. Then a new method is proposed to search for the first channel tap in the CIR vector, which can be employed to fine tune the timing position and adjust the channel estimation for later data block detection. The proposed scheme has low complexity, saves preamble overhead by performing joint synchronization and channel estimation, and outperforms existing timing acquisition methods in the literature by a large margin in dense multipath UWB channels. Moreover, this paper presents an analysis of the effect of residual timing error on the performance of single carrier systems with frequency domain equalization.

This paper addresses joint channel and data estimation for transmission over frequency‐selective and time‐varying channels based on a Doppler‐variant channel impulse response (CIR). A discrete spreading function (DSF), which corresponds to the Doppler Fourier series of the time‐varying channel taps, is introduced. The spectral leakage associated with the Fourier series representation is reduced by oversampling in Doppler‐direction. This approach, however, requires joint channel estimation and equalisation (JCE). Therefore, a recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm for the DSF estimation is combined with the data detection in a reduced state diagram. Furthermore, an enhanced metric, previously introduced in De Broeck et al. (Proceedings of Second International Workshop on Multi‐Carrier Spread‐Spectrum, 1999; published by Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht, 2000) for time‐invariant channels, is applied here for path selection. The performance of this metric is investigated here for time‐varying and frequency‐selective (TV‐FS) channels. The performance of the proposed approach is compared with the JCE algorithm which uses RLS estimation of a CIR by simulations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this paper, while considering the impact of antenna correlation and the interference from neighboring users, we study the problem of channel estimation and training sequence design in multi-input multi-output (MIMO) two-way relaying (TWR) systems. To this end, we propose to decompose the bidirectional transmission links into two phases, i.e., the multiple access (MAC) and the broadcast (BC) phases. By deriving the optimal linear minimum mean-square-error estimators, the corresponding training design problems for the MAC and BC phases are formulated and solved. Subsequently, algorithms and, in some special cases, closed-form solutions for obtaining the optimal training sequences for channel estimation in TWR systems are derived. Moreover, to further reduce channel estimation overhead, the minimum required length of the training sequences are determined. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed training designs in improving channel estimation performance in TWR systems.

Recently, a joint channel and angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation scheme for pilot-assisted multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems with digital arrays has been proposed; in that scheme, compressive sensing-based time-domain channel estimation is applied. In the scheme, it is assumed that each channel tap has only one AoA. However, in reality, one channel tap may contain responses from multiple paths with different AoAs. In this letter, we propose an improved approach to solve the aforementioned problem. The underlying concept is to transmit multiple OFDM symbols with different beamforming vectors, rendering the time-invariant channel equivalently time-variant. Subsequently, the correlation matrix, imbedded with AoA information, can be estimated. Finally, subspace-based algorithms, such as multiple signal classification (MUSIC), can be used for AoA estimation. The advantage of the proposed method is that the number of detectable AoAs is much larger than that in conventional MUSIC. The performance of the proposed method was also theoretically analyzed. Simulation results demonstrated that with a small number of OFDM symbols, both channel gains and AoAs could be satisfactorily estimated and the theoretical analysis results were accurate.

This paper addresses the problem of optimal training for joint carrier frequency offset (CFO) and channel estimation in multiuser MIMO OFDM systems, where each user can utilize all available subcarriers. To choose the training sequence with the goal of providing the smallest estimation mean square error (MSE), the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) is derived in close-form. However, little insight on the sequence selection can be obtained from the CRB directly due to its complicated dependence on training sequence and channel parameters. To proceed, asymptotic CRB, which has a much simpler dependence on the training, is derived. It is found that the optimal training sequences should be individually white and uncorrelated with each other. Simulation results illustrate the merits of the proposed training design.

Joint data and channel estimation for mobile communication receivers can be realized by employing a Viterbi detector along with channel estimators which estimate the channel impulse response. The behavior of the channel estimator has a strong impact on the overall error rate performance of the receiver. Kalman filtering is an optimum channel estimation technique which can lead to significant improvement in the receiver bit error rate (BER) performance. However, a Kalman filter is a complex algorithm and is sensitive to roundoff errors. Square-root implementation methods are required for robustness against numerical errors. Real-time computation of the Kalman estimator in a mobile communication receiver calls for parallel and pipelined structures to take advantage of the inherent parallelism in the algorithm. In this paper different implementation methods are considered for measurement update and time update equations of the Kalman filter. The unit-lower-triangular-diagonal (LD) correction algorithm is used for the time update equations, and systolic array structures are proposed for its implementation. For the overall implementation of joint data and channel estimation, parallel structures are proposed to perform both the Viterbi algorithm and channel estimation. Simulation results show the numerical stability of different implementation techniques and the number of bits required in the digital computations with different estimators.

We consider the Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer strategy optimization in the two-way transmission relay system under Power Splitting (PS) receiver. In such case, we propose two operational strategies for two-way transmission under PS receiver structure, (1) Delay-Limited-Relay strategy (PS-LDR) and (2) Delay-Tolerated-Relay strategy (PS-TDR). PS-LDR strategy is that both sending node and receiving node need synchronization of information transmission, so communication systems have higher Signal Noise Ratio (SNR) threshold for channels, or communication may break down. In order to explore the performance of PS-LDR strategy, we use outage probability to calculate the analytical expression of the actual maximum throughput (AMT). PS-TDR strategy allows that the information received by the receiving node delays with the information sent by the sending node. Communication system in PS-TDR strategy has lower SNR threshold than that in PS-LDR strategy. The analytical expression of the AMT is calculated by the ergodic capacity in PS-TDR strategy. The influences of system parameters on the optimal throughput in two strategies are discussed.

This letter considers a joint user activity, channel and data estimation problem in an uplink grant-free massive MIMO systems with low-precision analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). This joint estimation is firstly formalized as a non-overlapping group sparse problem, in which the components of compound channel follow independent conditional distribution. To address this problem, a new algorithm consists of the celebrated bilinear generalized approximate message passing (BiG-AMP) and loop belief propagation (LBP) is then proposed, where the strong connection of compound channel can be decoupled in LBP part. By exchanging the information between BiG-AMP part and LBP part, the proposed algorithm improves the performance of channel estimation compared with HyGAMP based method, in which the estimated payload data of proposed algorithm are utilized to aid channel estimation and it leads to relatively few pilot symbols to achieve equivalent channel and data estimation performances. The simulation results confirm that our proposed joint estimation algorithm improves the performance of the existing works in terms of user activity, channel and data estimation.

Joint channel estimation and data detection under fading on reconfigurable fabric

For distributed multi-user and multi-relay cooperative networks, the received signal may be affected by multiple timing offsets (MTOs) and multiple channels that need to be jointly estimated for successful decoding at the receiver. This paper addresses the design of optimal training sequences for efficient estimation of MTOs and multiple channel parameters. A new hybrid Cramer-Rao lower bound (HCRB) for joint estimation of MTOs and channels is derived. Subsequently, by minimizing the derived HCRB as a function of training sequences, three training sequence design guidelines are derived and according to these guidelines, two training sequences are proposed. In order to show that the proposed design guidelines also improve estimation accuracy, the conditional Cramer-Rao lower bound (ECRB), which is a tighter lower bound on the estimation accuracy compared to the HCRB, is also derived. Numerical results show that the proposed training sequence design guidelines not only lower the HCRB, but they also lower the ECRB and the mean-square error of the proposed maximum a posteriori estimator. Moreover, extensive simulations demonstrate that application of the proposed training sequences significantly lowers the bit-error rate performance of multi-relay cooperative networks when compared to training sequences that violate these design guidelines.

This paper considers joint active user detection (AUD) and channel estimation (CE) for massive connectivity scenarios with sporadic traffic. The state-of-art method under a Bayesian framework to perform joint AUD and CE in such scenarios is approximate message passing (AMP). However, the existing theoretical analysis of AMP-based joint AUD and CE can only be performed with a given fixed point of the AMP state evolution function, lacking the analysis of AMP phase transition and Bayes-optimality. In this paper, we propose a novel theoretical framework to analyze the performance of the joint AUD and CE problem by adopting the replica method in the Bayes-optimal condition. Specifically, our analysis is based on a general channel model, which reduces to particular channel models in multiple typical MIMO communication scenarios. Our theoretical framework allows ones to measure the optimality and phase transition of AMP-based joint AUD and CE as well as to predict the corresponding performance metrics under our model. To reify our proposed theoretical framework, we analyze two typical scenarios from the massive random access literature, i.e., the isotropic channel scenario and the spatially correlated channel scenario. Accordingly, our performance analysis produces some novel results for both the isotropic Raleigh channel and spatially correlated channel case.

This paper proposes a new blind algorithm, based on Mixture Kalman Filtering (MKF), for joint carrier recovery and channel estimation in time-selective Rayleigh fading channels. MKF is a powerful tool for estimating unknown parameters in non-linear, non-Gaussian, real-time applications. We use a combination of Kalman filtering and Sequential Monte Carlo Sampling to estimate the channel fading coefficients and joint posterior probability density of the unknown carrier offset and transmitted data respectively. We study the effect of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and doppler shift on Mean Square Error (MSE) and Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of the proposed algorithm through computer simulations. The results show that BER of the proposed algorithm achieves the theoretical performance slope for the full acquisition range of normalized carrier frequency offset.

In this paper, we present a study of optimal training sequences for robust joint channel estimation and signal detection. Particularly, we study the case of virtual MIMO links, where there are more co-channel signals M than receive antennas N, i.e., N <M. A training sequence based on the one-dimensional chaotic Chebyshev map is presented herein. This sequence delivers robust performance in terms of Bit Error rate (BER), Normalized Mean-Squared-Error (NMSE) of the estimation and computation complexity. The proposed sequence exhibits an optimal performance by spanning only a minimal number of training symbols, i.e., L=M. The proposed chaotic-based training sequence performs adequatly on both i.i.d. and correlated Rayleigh Fading Channels without the need for a priori statistics of the channel.

Preamble with repeated time domain blocks is a very common design for joint time and frequency synchronization in various communication systems and standards. While it is easy to design two or more repeated time domain blocks in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and some other systems, it is not straightforward to design filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) signal that has the repetition property in time domain, as FBMC modulation spreads one block of frequency domain signal into multiple blocks in time domain. In this paper, a new design is proposed for constructing repeated time domain blocks in FBMC. The preamble based on this design can be used for joint time-frequency synchronization and channel estimation as well. Extensive simulations are shown to verify the performance of the design.