Blind Channel Estimation for MIMO Uplink

MC-CDMA Systems with Layered Space

Frequency Equalisation
Sonu Punnoose, Xu Zhu, Asoke. K. Nandi
Signal Processing and Communications Group,
Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics,
The University of Liverpool, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L69 3GJ, U.K
Email: sppadic, xuzhu, a.k.nandi@liv.ac.uk

Abstract— In this paper, we investigate blind channel estima-
tion for Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) multi-carrier
CDMA (MC-CDMA) systems in the uplink scenario. An Auto-
correlation Contribution Matrix (ACM) method is proposed in
comparison with the subspace approach. Using only second order
statistics, the ACM approach shows similar performance to that
of subspace based approach. The added advantage is that it elim-
inates the need for rank estimation and noise power calculation
as in subspace technique. In particular we incorporate blind
channel estimation with Layered Space Frequency Equalisation
(LSFE),which employs successive interference cancellation and
therefore provides significant performance improvement over the
conventional linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) based
approach.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems [2] have
been shown to be an effective solution to improve the spec-
tral efficiency of wireless communications. Much research
has been carried out on MIMO techniques, such as the V-
BLAST (Vertical Bell Labs Layered Space time) receiver
[3], which employs successive interference cancellation. In
[12], a Layered Space frequency equalisation (LSFE) structure
was proposed for single carrier MIMO systems, which is an
extension of V-BLAST in frequency selective channels.
MIMO MC-CDMA systems, which take the advantages
of spatial diversity and the MC-CDMA scheme [1], enable
different users to share the same spectrum and thereby make
utmost use of the available spectrum. Each user is differ-
entiated by means of unique signature (spreading) codes,
which spread the information bits in the frequency domain.
In [4], an LSFE structure was proposed for MIMO MC-
CDMA systems in the downlink, which provides significant
performance improvement over the conventional approaches.
Channel estimation techniques using pilot or training sym-
bols reduces the bandwidth efficiency, which has led to re-
searchers investigating various blind channel estimation ap-
proaches. Blind source separation (BSS) [5] or higher order
statistics (HOS) [6] based methods are not easily applicable for
the uplink MC-CDMA signal, where each subcarrier involves
a sum of the spread signals of all users leading to a nearly
Gaussian mixture. The subspace method based on second
order statistics (SOS) are however available,which have been
utilised in [9] [10] for blind channel estimation and weight
calculation respectively. However the work in [9] [10] only
assumed multiple input single output (MISO) systems.
In this paper, we investigate blind channel estimation for
MIMO MC-CDMA systems in the uplink. We propose an
Autocorrelation Contribution Matrix (ACM) based method, in
comparison with the subspace based method. ACM was first
proposed in [11] for direct-sequence (DS) CDMA systems.
Our work is different in that we apply the ACM method to
MIMO MC-CDMA uplink systems. ACM provides perfor-
mance similar to that obtained by subspace based approach,
with the added advantage of eliminating the need for rank
estimation as in subspace method. Also we employ LSFE
integrated with blind channel estimation for this scenario,
which leads to significant performance enhancement compared
to the conventional MMSE method. The effect of receive
diversity on performance of LSFE is also shown.
In Section 2, we present the system model. The ACM
blind channel estimation scheme is presented in Section 3.We
describe LSFE in Section 4, and show the simulation results
in Section 5 and conclusions are drawn in Section 6.
The following notations are used throughout the paper, [·]T ,
[·] denote the transpose and conjugate transpose of vectors re-
H
spectively, which are represented in small-case, while matrices
in boldface capital and I represents the N × N identity matrix
and diag(x) represents a diagonal matrix with the vector x
along the diagonal.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
The block diagram of an uplink MC-CDMA system [1] is
shown in Figures 1 and 2. The use of multiple antennas at
the receiver (base station) is feasible and practical as against
the mobile user, where power and complexity issues become
paramount. For simplifying matters a simple 2 user Uplink
MC-CDMA system is illustrated with each user sending its
information using an antenna. At the base-station (receiver)
end, receive diversity can be utilised by introducing multiple
antennas.

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User1 Copying Spreading IFFT GB−I where λs = diag(λ1 , λ2 , ..λNt ) and λn = σn2 IN −Nt . Noise
subspace is space spanned by all the singular values ≤
σn ,where σn is the noise power. Signal and noise subspaces
are orthogonal complements of each other i.e. noise subspace
is orthogonal to the range space spanned by the channel. Math-
ematically this can be expressed as UN hi = 0,where hi is
UserNt Copying Spreading IFFT GB−I the channel impulse response of user i. The subspace method
essentials requires minimisation of the following quadratic cost
function
Fig. 1. Uplink MC-CDMA Transmitter
hi = arg min ||hH i Qi hi ||
2
(3)
||h||=1

The system model used consists of Nt transmit and Nr where the matrix Qi for user i is given by [10]
receive antennas with L representing the channel order, which
is assumed known, at the receiver.Walsh-Hadamard codes are Qi = PH CH H
i Un Un Ci P (4)
used for spreading of size N ,where N is set equal to the P is the phase rotation matrix due to the delay of the channel
number of subcarriers. BPSK modulation is used for each user. represented as
Figure 1 shows the uplink MIMO MC-CDMA transmitter.  
Each user’s signal is first copied N times and then spread in 1 1 ....
the frequency domain using the corresponding code bit for  1 φ... φL−1 
 
each carrier. The spread signal is then transformed using the 
P =  : : .... :  (5)

IFFT (Inverse Fast Fourier Transform). A cyclic prefix is added  : : ... : 
at the beginning of each block to negate the effects of Inter- 1 φN −1 φ(L−1)(N −1)
Symbol Interference (ISI) caused by multi-path phenomenon 2π
by choosing the length of the cyclic prefix to be L. After seri- where φ = e−j N . It is a submatrix of the FFT matrix, taking
alisation, the different users spread signals are then transmitted only the first L columns. The effective signature or code
from their respective antennas through a frequency selective sequence for each user is given as χi = Ci Phi , where hi is the
Rayleigh fading channel. channel impulse response between the transmit antenna(user)
At the jth receive antenna, after removal of the guard band i and the receiver.
and demodulation using FFT, the received signal obtained at
B. ACM Method
jth antenna is expressed as
The ACM method as proposed in [11] utilises the entire
Nt

autocorrelation matrix to find the estimates with its key
yj = Hji xi + nj (1) advantages being that no rank or noise power estimation is
i=1
required as in subspace based approaches. The equivalence
where Hji is the channel frequency response matrix between of MMSE algorithm with that of MSINR receiver is made
the jth receive and the ith transmit antennas, nj is the noise use of in deriving the equations for ACM algorithm [11]. For
at the jth receive antenna while xi is the ith user’s signal and simplicity, user 1 is assumed to be the user of interest and
yj represents the received signal at antenna j. the channel at receive antenna 1 is estimated in the following
The spreading is done in frequency domain using a diag- and the receive antenna index is dropped. Also the spreading
onal spreading matrix Ci of size N × N . Ci expressed as code matrix CNt for each user is assumed to be known at the
diag(ci (0)ci (1) . . . ci (N − 1)) [10].Thus the ith users signal base-station. As in subspace approach for a MIMO system,the
can be represented as xi = Ci di ,where di is the size N × 1 following is repeated for each receive antenna.
vector. The general MMSE weight coefficients for user 1 at receive
III. B LIND CHANNEL ESTIMATION antenna 1 is given by
A. Subspace Method
wmmse,1 = R−1 C1 Ph1 (6)
The subspace algorithm works by utilising the structure in-
herent in the signal. The SVD (singular value decomposition) The MSINR receiver is for user 1 is represented as [11]-
of auto-correlation matrix Rj of the received signal at receive
antenna j yields the signal and noise subspace denoted by v H h1 hH
1 v
wmsinr = arg max (7)
Usj and Unj respectively [8], [9], [10]. In MIMO systems i.e. ||v||=1 v H Rv
with more than one receive antenna, the subspace equations The above equations are equivalent as result of the MMSE
are applied separately for each receive antenna to estimate all receiver also maximising the SINR, thereby yielding for user
the Nt channels. 1,
  T 
λs 0 Usj v H PH CH 1R
−1
Rb1 R−1 C1 Pv
H
Rj = E[yj yj ] = [Usj Unj ] T (2) hˆ1 = arg max (8)
0 λn Unj ||v||=1 v H PH CH
1 R
−1 C Pv
1

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where Rb1 = h1 hH
BLIND
1 is the subspace matrix of desired user CHANNEL
symbols b1 while hˆ1 denotes the estimate of channel of user 1. ESTIMATION

The subspace matrix Rb1 is replaced by the whole signal space

Rb , expressed as Rb = h1 hH 1 + HMAI HMAI . HMAI represents
H

the contribution due to the other users (interference). The

matrix Rb contains the subspace of the entire signal including LSFE
LSFE
Stage
LSFE
that of the interfering users. The matrices Rb and R are related Stage1 Stage 2 Nt

R = Rb + σ 2 I.
ACM algorithm can also be represented equivalently as
v H PH C1H R−1 (R − σ 2 I)R−1 C1 v
hˆ1 = arg max (9) IC IC
||v||=1 v H PH CH1R
−1 PC v
1

Using the equation above,the channel impulse response for IC− Interference Cancellation

user 1 can be estimated as Fig. 2. Uplink MC-CDMA Receiver

v H PH CH R−2 C1 Pv
hˆ1 = arg min H H 1H −1 (10) BLIND
||v||=1 v P C1 R C1 Pv CHANNEL
ESTIMATION
It is evident from the above equations that there is no de-
composition required and hence no rank estimation is required. 1

Despread
Also no noise power estimation is required making it more S/P FFT
FDE
robust to errors that may be caused as a result of rank under EQUALISER ESTIMATE
or overestimation.
S/P FFT Despread
Nr
IV. E QUALISATION /D ETECTION
A. MMSE Equaliser
Fig. 3. A Particular LSFE Stage
After obtaining the channel estimates using the above de-
scribed subspace or ACM method, the received signal is then
processed by an MMSE equaliser [7]. This can be expressed signals with less interference are obtained after removing inter-
as follows [9] - ference caused by previously detected signals. Thus all users
are detected and their corresponding interference are cancelled
Wmmse,i = (HHH + σ 2 I)−1 Hi (11) in a successive manner.The modified received

 signal at a par-
ticular stage can be written as Y[n] = i H i [n]Xi [n] + N [n]
where H is the whole channel matrix of size Nr N ×Nt N with where H  i [n] is the channel matrix of size Nr ×Nt , with Xi [n]
Hi denoting the channel submatrix of user i of size Nr N × N and Y[n] representing the transmitted signal vector of size
which is expressed as Hi = [H1,i . . . HNr ,i ]T . Nt × 1 and the received signal vector of size Nr × 1, while
The equalised signals are then despread using each users N [n] is the noise on subcarrier n. The Frequency Domain
spreading code and then passed to hard decision device to Equaliser (FDE) coefficients are calculated based on the MSE
obtain the final estimate of users signal. criterion,which is defined as
B. LSFE Equaliser MSE = E|di − di |2 (12)
We extend the work of [4] to the uplink MIMO MC-CDMA The weight vectors wi can be expressed as
system.The block diagram of the LSFE is shown in Figure 2,
which consists of a blind channel estimation stage followed wi [n] = R−1
i [n]Fi [n] (13)
by Nt LSFE stages performing interference cancellation. where Ri [n] is the autocorrelation matrix of the channel
The LSFE technique is modified such that the ordering of response on each carrier n for user i and is expressed as
the streams is done based on the sum of all mean square

error (MSE) values calculated for each user. After detection of Ri [n] = H i [n]H
 H [n] + σ 2 I (14)
i
each of the users,the effects of the detected user is cancelled i
from the remaining signal. After cancelling the interference where σ 2 is the noise power and Fi [n] is the channel sub-
caused by the detected signal, the corresponding channel matrix corresponding to the user that is being detected ex-
values are also removed to leave the undetected stream with  1i [n].....H
pressed as Fi [n] = {H  N i [n]}.
r
its corresponding channel coefficients. The MSE for each carrier for each user is then calculated
Figure 3 shows a particular stage of the LSFE using the formula
equaliser/detector [12], where the FDE block performs equal- N −1
1
H 
isation as well as interference cancellation, before the hard M SEi,n = 1 − H [n]R−1
i [n]Hi [n] (15)
decision is made by the decision device. The modified received N n=0 i

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 0 0
10 10
ACM 2x2
Sub 2x4
LACM 2x6
−1 LSub −1
10 10

−2 −2
10 10
BER

BER
−3 −3
10 10

−4 −4
10 10

−5 −5
10 10

−6 −6
10 10
0 5 10 15 20 25 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
SNR SNR

Fig. 4. LSFE vs MMSE for ACM and Subspace estimates Fig. 5. LSFE with receive diversity using ACM estimates

The decision variable which determines the ordering of the
by the sum of all the M SE values as given
streams is given
by M SEi = n M SEi,n .
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
The simulations runs were done for the case of N = 32
subcarriers with channe length L set to 4 for a 2 user uplink
scenario with 2 receive antennas at the receiver.A uniform
power delay profile for the L = 4 paths was assumed. Figure
4 compares the BER performance of the LSFE and MMSE
detector for the 2 × 2 system utilising ACM and subspace
based channel estimates. The legends showing LACM and
LSub stand for the LSFE detector employing the ACM and
subspace channel estimates respectively.The improvement in
performance of the LSFE approach is due to the cancellation
of interference and ordered detection of users based on the
MSE criterion.
Figure 5 compares the LSFE detector performance using
ACM based channel estimates for different number of re-
ceive antennas. As shown the performance improves with the
number of receive antennas as a result of receive diversity
introduced into the system and also the successive interference
cancellation effects of LSFE algorithm.
VI. C ONCLUSIONS
We have proposed an ACM based blind channel estimation
algorithm for MIMO MC-CDMA uplink systems. It was
shown that ACM provides similar performance to the subspace
approach with the advantage that no noise-power estimation or
rank estimation are needed. We also integrated blind channel
estimation with LSFE, which yields significant performance
improvement over the MMSE technique, due to successive
interference cancellation. By increasing the number of receive
antennas, LSFE with ACM achieves significant receive diver-
sity.
VII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sonu Punnoose would like to acknowledge the financial sup-
port from the Overseas Research Studentship Awards Scheme,
U.K and the University of Liverpool, U.K.
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