Decision-directed Channel Estimation Method for OFDM systems with high velocities

Jianjun Ran, Rainer Griinheid, Hermann Rohling Technical University Hamburg-Harburg Department of Telecommunications Hamburg, Germany b.ran, gruenheid, rohling@tu-harburg.de} Abstract-The preamble-based channel estimation schemes typically applied in both the HIPERLANIZ and IEEE 802.11a systems cannot fulfill the requirements in scenarios with high velocities. Therefore, this paper deals with the Decision-Directed Estimation (DDE) method for a blind channel estimation procedure. With the help of the output decision symbols from the demodulator at the receiver side, the statistical characteristics of the transmitted data via the noisy fading channel are applied for tracking the fast changing channel transfer function. As a result, DDE can improve the performance of OFDM systems in high velocity applications with a very low computation complexity.
Keywordv-hnnnel estimation; OFDM; HIPERUND; DDE

Edgar Bolinth, Ralf Kern Siemens AG ICM MP P TI 2 Bocholt, Germany {edgar.bolinth, ralf.kem@bch.siemens.de) system overhead are not so crucial. On the other hand, blind channel estimation methods are more bandwidth efficient, but need a slightly higher computation complexity. In [3], the linear channel prediction information is also used for fading channel tracking with a decision directed form.

INTRODUCTION Channel estimation procedures are in general of great importance for modem radio communication systems, since they allow the receiver to approximate the channel transfer factors for processing steps such as adaptive equalization, diversity combining, maximum likelihood detection, link adaptation and coherent demodulation. There are basically two categories of channel estimation techniques: one is the training-sequence based method that can be simply implemented at the cost of lower bandwidth efficiency; the other is the blind estimation technique, which utilizes certain underlying statistical properties of the transmitted data.
1.

In this paper, a semi-blind channel estimation technique is proposed which is based on a decision-directed estimation (DDE) approach for high velocity scenarios, which tries to combine the benefits from both the preamble pilots and statistic characteristics of the transmitted data from a finite modulation alphabet due to the noisy fading channels. Similarly as described in [2], a recursive filter i s used to provide the reliable feedback information at the output of the symbol demodulator. In this way, with a low complexity, the channel transfer function could be updated from symbol to symbol in the time direction only with the help of the DDE.

11.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

A.

OFDMSysfemwith DDE

1
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The most recent WLAN standards HIPERLANR [I] and IEEE 802.1 l a make use of the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transmission technique at the physical layer. In this case, a pilot structure of inserting preambles for channel estimation is periodically embedded at the beginning of a transmission frame. The channel information is then measured from the pilot sequence and applied within the remaining frame for the equalization process for all the information symbols. However, the WLAN preamble structure works well only for systems with slowly time-variant channels. When it comes to new scenarios with higher terminal velocities, it is necessary to embed more frequent pilot signals within the whole frame to track the time-variant behaviour in the radio channel. In [2], the pilot-based concept of mid-amble approach is proposed for the application cases where the bandwidth efficiency and some

j wi M i ................................

Figure I : Block diagram far an OFDM system nith DDE

A typical block diagram of an OFDM transmission system is shown in Figure 1. At the transmitter side, the input data sequence is first operated by a serial-to-parallel operation fol-

0-7803-7757-51031317 W 02W3 IEEE

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lowed by a symbol modulator. After IFFT processing the sequence is again transferred by a parallel-to-serial operation. A guard inteival is inserted for each OFDM symbol in order to avoid InterAsymbol-interference ( I S ) caused by multi-path channels. In the receiver, after FFT processing each subcarrier signal is first equalized by a simple Zero-Forcing (ZF) [4] scheme to remove the channel distortion. Therefore the channel transfer function is continuously estimated based on a DDE procedure. In this case the detected symbols at the output of the demodulator are considered as an input sequence for the DDE processing. A guard interval of sufficient length is assumed that can avoid IS1 completely. The additive noise in the channel is assumed to have the characteristics o f a white Gaussian process.
LtOFDM Symbol

111.

PRINCIPLE OF DECISION DIRECTED ESTIMATION (DDE)

The basic principle of DDE is depicted in Fig 3. Here n denotes the time index and k is the index for an OFDM subcarrier. The subcarrier-specific received complex value symbol R,, is equalized by applying a ZF technique, se_e Eq (3.1) based on the previously estimated transfer factor Hn+ that is taken as a prediction of the current transfer factor.
(3.1)

The equalized symbol is then detected by the demoduwill be further divided by the lator. The detected symbol S,,* received symbol R , , in order to calculate the new channel transfer factor Ha,:

(3.2)
Updm by Dnlrbn Olrrued EItlmlPm (OOEJ

Figure 2 Frame Data Sfmcture with DDE in OFDM Systems

Simultaneously the channel estimation is updated in a simple recursive filter procedure with the time-variant factor ?using the most recent prediction of the channel transfer factor H"., I and the currently measured channel transfer factor Hn,t :

Frame Structure with DDE The frame data structure of DDE is shown in Figure 2. After the preamble, a number of L OFDM symbols are transmitted inside one frame. In addition to the typical purely preamble-based estimation used in HIPERLANR, a DDE is applied during the channel estimation procedure to provide an OFDM symbol-wise update for the time-variant radio channels. The technical details of a DDE procedure will be explained in section 111. B. If the frame length in Figure 2 is too long compared to the coherence time of the channel, further pilots such as midambles [2] should periodically be introduced into a single frame to re-initialize the DDE in order to achieve a good estimation performance. In this paper the focus is put on the analysis and performance investigations of the DDE according to Figure 2.

The procedure of calculating the variable update factory is explained in the following part.
A.

a-Posterioriprobabiliry ofthe decision symbol

gn,*

In the following mathematical discussion, the time index n and subcarrier index k will be skipped for brevity. On the subcarrier level of the OFDM system, it is assumed that the received signal R is a random variable which is interfered by the channel transfer factor H and by additive white Gaussian noise G (0,02),where

R=S.H+w the PDF of R is therefore given by P(RIS)=1

(3.4)

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(3.5)

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With M-QAM modulation, S , (m=1,2 ...M) will be taken from a finite alphabet set s. In the demodulator, the symbol S that has the nearest distance to the equalized symbol S will , are be assigned as the measured symbol. If all the symbols S assumed to have a uniformly distribution at the transmitter, with toto1 probability theorem and Bqves' Formulo [SI, the Uposterior~probability of the detected symbol is:

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Eq (3.6) shows that R) depends on the distances, the channel transfer factor H and the noise influence. Also, it shows that the measured symbol has the maximum posteriori probability in the sets. Obviously,
-1 -<p(sIR)il
M

p(sI

(3.7)

B. DDE update factor y The update factor y (O<yqm,) 121 generated for the recursive filter depends on the quality of the decision symbol, which indicates the reliability information of the-estimate for the detected symbols. Due to the fact that p ( S l R) and y are not m , ] a no3alized uniformly distributed in the interval [0, y ywill be calculated with Eq (3.8) in the DDE. If p(S I R ) is very large then a larger value for y is used and vice versa. The update factory is calculated as:

B. Simulation Results and Analysis Figure 4 and Figure 5 depict the performance for both channel estimation procedures (purely preamble based and DDE based) for QPSK modulation scheme in the scenarios with high velocities. Applying DDE, it can be observed in Figure 4 that the MSE performance is significantly improved compared with the purely preamble based estimation procedure. The performance differences increase with increasing frame length L.

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DDE. L-2.. 2 preame. L 2 1 . =,w*nmDDE.L;ZI.PI~

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IV.

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

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A . Simulation Parameters To assess the performance of the described concept, simulations have been performed. The channel model for wide-open space environment (ETSI channel C) has been taken into account. The Mean Square Error (MSE) is the performance measure for the DDE procedure. The output Packet Error Rate (PER) is used to describe the total system performance. MSE is defined in Eq (3.9) as the mean square error between the channel transfer factor Hn,k and its estimation value Gn&. Two estimation procedures are compared: the purely preamble-based method and the proposed DDE approach.

Figure 4: MSE performance of purely preamble and DDE based channel estimation procedures for QPSK

4.
4 .

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The modulation schemes QPSK and I6QAM are selected with a code rate of R=%, respectively. The terminal velocities are set to 100 kwdh and 200 km/h in different simulation cases. Other parameters based on HIPERLANI2 standard and the DDE parameter set of ymymu and a are listed in Table 1. The performance enhancement by DDE comparing with the preamhlebased method is presented and analysed in part B.
TABLE 1. SYSTEM PARAMETERS FOR QUANTATIVE ANALYSIS

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Figure 5: System PER performance of purely preamble and DDE based channel estimation procedures for QPSK

FFT size
Number of used rubcarriers

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ETSI Channel C (Lar e o en s ace environment ymu= 0.20, a = 1.5

Figure 5 shows the system PER performance for velocities of 100 and 200 kmih with frame length L=24 and 30. All PER curves show a clear error floor for the purely preamble based channel estimation technique. The DDE method shows acceptm h and a frame able performance for a velocity of 100 k length of L=24, but still a performance difference compared with the ideal channel estimation of approximately 3 dB occurs for a PER of , see Figure 5 . The performance limitations occur due to unpredictable deep fading situations in the time variant radio channel [3]. For that reason the frame length L must be chosen carefully in the system design in accordance with the maximum velocity. Based on the results above, another set of simulations with the modulation scheme of I6QAM and a specific velocity of 100 km/h only are investigated in order to find out the trends 2360

of proper frame lengths L if DDE is applied. The results are shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7. Similarly, the MSE results of DDE well outperform that of the preamble-based case. The PER shows acceptable performance with DDE if the frame length L is limited to L=I2. In this c a e a gain of about 2.7 dB for a PER of 10~'occurs compared with the purely preamble based channel estimation technique.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

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This work has been performed in the framework of the IST project 1ST-2000-28584 MIND, which was partly funded by the European Union. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of their colleagues from Siemens AG, British Telecommunications PLC, Agora Systems S.A., Ericsson Radio Systems AB, France Telecom S.A., King's College London, Nokia Corporation, NTT DoCoMo Inc, Sony International (Europe) GmbH, T-Systems Nova GmbH, University of Madrid, and Infineon Technologies AG.

REFERENCES
ETSl DTSIBRAN-0023003, "HIPERLAN Type 2 Technical Specification; Physical (PHY) layer," November 1999. [2] Rainer Gmunheid, Herman" Rohling, Jianjun Ran, Edgar Bolinth, Ralf Kem: "Robust Channel Estimation in Wireless LANs for Mobile Environments", VTC 2W2, Vancouver, Canada, September, 2002.

[I]

p]

Raphael J. Lyman and William W. Edmonson: "Decision-Directed Tracking of Fading Channels Using Linear Prediction of the Fading Envelope ", 33' Asilomar Conference on Signal Processing, Systems, andComouters. 1999.val. 2. 00.1154-1158.

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[SI Yaakov Bar-Shalom, Xiao-Rang Li, Estimarron and Trockzng: Pnnciple, Techniques ondSofnuore. M e c h House, 1993.

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Figure 7: System PER performance of purely preamble and DDE based channel estimation procedures for I6QAM (v=1001Vnih)

V. CONCLUSIONS The system concept and results of a decision-directed channel estimation technique is introduced and investigated in this paper. The performance enhancement of the decision directed channel estimation (DDE) compared with the purely preamble-based method is analyzed. On the one hand, the DDE method uses the decisions at the output ofthe demodulator, which leads to a rather low complexity and a delay of only a single OFDM symbol. On the other hand, the statistical characteristics of the transmitted data are additionally applied to distribute the feedback information with the help of a recursive filter. Thus the time variance of the channel, especially in cases with high velocities, could be properly tracked. As a whole, the DDE method shows a good performance increase with only low computation complexity.

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