TRANSACTIONS ON EMERGING TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 2013; 24:5968

Published online 24 October 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/ett.2582
SPECIAL ISSUE - LTE-A
Two iterative channel estimation algorithms in
single-input multiple-output (SIMO) LTE systems
Yang Liu and Serdar Sezginer*
Sequans Communications, 19 Le Parvis de la Dfense, 92073 Paris, France
ABSTRACT
Accurate channel estimation is a challenging problem in a long term evolution systems especially in highly selective
channels. In this paper, two iterative channel estimation algorithms are proposed to efciently estimate channels over
the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols containing pilot symbols. The rst one is proposed
based on a simple interpolation algorithm, named as simple iterative frequency interpolation (SIFI), and improves the
system performances with low implementation complexity. The second one is derived from the traditional expectation
maximisation (EM) algorithm in OFDM systems. In order to deal with the null subcarriers in the guard band and
make the algorithm converge, the truncated singular value decomposition method is integrated to truncated singular value
decomposition expectation-maximisation (TSVD-EM). Both channel estimation algorithms are followed by a simple linear
interpolation in time domain to obtain channel estimates over the whole subframe. Complexities of the proposed algorithms
are also analysed and compared. Simulation results show that the SIFI algorithm outperforms the traditional interpolation
method with a low complexity, and the TSVD-EM algorithm approaches the best achievable performance with a reduced
complexity. Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEY WORDS
iterative channel estimation; long term evolution; expectation maximisation; orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
*Correspondence
Serdar Sezginer, Sequans Communications, 19 Le Parvis de la Dfense, 92073 Paris, France.
E-mail: serdar@sequans.com
Received 12 March 2012; Revised 18 June 2012; Accepted 12 July 2012
1. INTRODUCTION
In long term evolution (LTE) systems, as in other wireless
communication systems, the accuracy of channel estimates
seriously affects the system performance. In order to obtain
precise channel estimates with appropriate complexity,
many studies have been devoted to channel estimation in
orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) sys-
tems [14]. For time-varying channels, channel estimation
may be implemented on both frequency and time domains.
In terms of mean square error (MSE), the optimal chan-
nel estimator is two-dimensional (2D) Wiener lter-based
interpolation, which is derived from minimum MSE
(MMSE) criterion. However, because of its high complex-
ity, it is not feasible to use 2D Wiener lter in a practical
system. Various methods have been studied to reduce the
complexity of MMSE estimator such as linear mismatched
MMSE estimator [5], exponential mismatched MMSE esti-
mator [3], 21D MMSE estimator [6] and so on. As can
be expected, these estimators reduce the complexity of
traditional 2D MMSE estimator at the expense of perfor-
mance degradation. In practical systems, thanks to its low
complexity, the 21D interpolation method is preferred
where frequency and time interpolations are performed
independently [7]. This approach provides a good trade-off
between complexity and performance.
In recent years, iterative receivers have become more
and more popular because of their attractive performance
especially after the appearance of turbo principle [8]. Dif-
ferent iterative detection mechanisms have already been
proposed and studied in detail (see, e.g., [9] and refer-
ences therein). However, these iterative mechanisms are
seriously affected by channel estimator performance. Thus,
in iterative receivers, one needs more accurate channel
estimates in order to improve system performances. More-
over, for future standards, one of the main objectives is to
build more efcient transmission systems. In this manner,
decreasing the power level or the number of pilot symbols
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
59
Y. Liu and S. Sezginer
are the possible ways to improve the spectral efciency.
In such systems, the estimation algorithms used in cur-
rent systems may result in less accuracy and more robust
estimation algorithms will be needed. In such situations,
iterative channel estimation that uses the soft information
of data can be considered in order to improve the accuracy.
Different iterative channel estimators have already been
proposed for OFDM systems [10, 11] by using the soft
information from the channel decoder. However, some of
these proposed iterative algorithms have extremely high
complexity and most of them do not consider the null
subcarrier in practical systems. In this paper, in order to
have low complexity iterative channel estimator, we pro-
pose two iterative channel estimation algorithms based on
a simple 2 1D interpolation method: the simple itera-
tive frequency interpolation (SIFI) algorithm has a low
complexity and the truncated singular value decomposi-
tion expectation-maximisation (TSVD-EM) algorithm per-
forms as well as the traditional EM algorithm but with a
lower complexity. Both the SIFI and the TSVD-EM are
suitable to systems with null subcarriers.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. In
Section 2, the interpolation-based channel estimation
method in LTE systems is briey explained. Next,
Section 3 describes the proposed iterative channel estima-
tion algorithms. In Section 4, complexities of the proposed
algorithms are analysed and compared. Simulation results
are shown in Section 5. Finally, conclusions are drawn
in Section 6.
2. CONVENTIONAL CHANNEL
ESTIMATION IN LTE
In LTE systems, the channel estimates can be obtained
using conventional linear interpolation algorithms based
on reference symbols (RS). In Figure 1, the cell-specic
RS locations corresponding to normal cyclic prex con-
guration up to four transmit antennas are shown, for
one subframe and two adjacent resource blocks, where
P
n
.0 6 n 6 N
T
1/ represents the RSs for the nth trans-
mit antenna port [12]. From Figure 1, the RSs for transmit
antenna 0 and 1 have the same distribution: every sixth car-
rier in frequency domain and the rst and fth symbols
in time domain. In this paper, we focus on one transmit
antenna case.
In practical systems, in order to have simple channel
estimation, usually, the conventional 2x1D interpolation
methods [7] are performed. According to the orders of
interpolations in time domain and frequency domain, we
can have different strategies to implement the channel esti-
mation. In this paper, we focus on the method that performs
the frequency domain interpolation rst, which is depicted
in Figure 2.
The channel estimates on pilot positions are noted as

h
P
k,I
, where k stands for the subcarrier index in one OFDM
symbol and l denotes the index of OFDM symbols in one
subframe. If the position .k; l/ does not correspond to a
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
Figure 1. Reference symbols in long term evolution system for
normal cyclic prex [12].
Frequency domain interpolation
Time domain interpolation
Channel estimates on RS
Figure 2. Conventional channel estimation in an long term
evolution subframe.
pilot position, the channel estimate on this position is null,
that is,

h
P
k,I
= 0. On the basis of channel estimates on
pilot positions, frequency domain channel estimation is
implemented with a lter. The lter has a coefcient vector
c = .c
0
; ; c
1
FLTR
-1
/, where L
FLTR
stands for the lter
length. With this lter, the channel estimate on the resource
element (RE) .k; l/ is expressed as

h
k,I
=
1
FLTR
-1

n=0
c
n

h
P
k-
L
FLTR
2
n,I
(1)
Finally, interpolation in time domain is performed to get
all the channel estimates. For time domain interpolation,
we consider a simple linear interpolation in order to keep
the complexity as low as possible. When the previous and
the next RSs exist, the channel estimate on the RE .k; l/
can be obtained by

h
k,I
=

h
RS, prev
d
next

h
RS, next
d
prev
d
prev
d
next
(2)
where

h
RS, prev
and

h
RS, next
stand for the channel estimates
on the previous and next pilot positions; d
prev
and d
next
60 Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 24:5968 (2013) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
Y. Liu and S. Sezginer
CHE
Mapping
Detection
&
Demapping
CP
FFT
CP
FFT
Decoder Equalizer
soft info.
Figure 3. Receiver block diagram with iterative channel estimator.
are the distances from .k; l/ to the previous and next RSs,
respectively. In the sequel, we will discuss the channel esti-
mation over one OFDM symbol and the subscript l will
be omitted.
In this paper, iterative channel estimation algorithms will
be studied based on the iterative receiver shown in Figure 3.
After cyclic prex removal and fast Fourier transform
(FFT) for each received antenna, the received symbol
vector on the rth received antenna y
i
=
_
y
i
0
; ; y
i
1-1
_
T
can be written as
y
i
=Xh
i
n
i
(3)
where the matrix X stands for a diagonal matrix contain-
ing transmitted symbol X
kk
at the kth diagonal entry; the
vector h
i
represents the channel coefcients in the fre-
quency domain; n is a complex Gaussian noise vector with
zero mean and variance 2
2
. Then, the received symbols
y
i
are fed to the equaliser (EQU) and the equaliser com-
bines multiple streams (two receive antennas as shown in
Figure 3) into a single one y
EQU
and passes it to the detec-
tor. In the detector, likelihood of each symbol is calculated.
Then, on the basis of likelihoods of symbols, informa-
tion on coded bits is obtained, deinterleaved and provided
to the channel decoder. From channel decoder, some soft
information (soft info.) on coded bits is generated. After
interleaving and mapping, the soft information is used to
implement iterative channel estimation. With new chan-
nel estimates, the whole process will be performed again.
Through successive iterations, system performance can
be improved.
3. ITERATIVE CHANNEL
ESTIMATION
In this section, two iterative channel estimation algo-
rithms for LTE systems will be proposed: SIFI and TSVD-
EM algorithm.
3.1. Simple iterative frequency
interpolation algorithm
Because the 2 1D interpolation method is widely
used in practical systems, it is natural to develop iter-
ative channel estimation methods based on this simple
interpolation algorithm.
For the initial (rst) iteration, the channel estimates on
pilot positions can be obtained by

h
0
P,n
=
X
+
P,nn
y
P,n
[X
P,nn
[
2
(4)
where X
P,nn
and y
P,n
stand for the nth transmitted and
received pilot symbol. Then, the FI is implemented based
on the channel estimates

h
0
P
=
_

h
0
P,0
; ;

h
0
P,n
;
_
T
. In
an LTE subframe, the interval between two pilot symbols
is 6 for antenna ports 0 and 1. Thus, the interpolation is
performed with a spacing of 6 symbols

h
(0)
=FLTR
_

h
0
P
_
6
(5)
where FLTR./ stands for a simple frequency domain lter
with a spacing of 6 symbols; the vector

h
(0)
represents
channel estimates in the initial iteration, which includes the
channel estimates on pilot positions, denoted as

h
(0)
P,n
, and
the channel estimates on data positions, denoted as

h
(0)
k
, as
shown in Figure 4.
From the second iteration, we propose to implement the
FI with a smaller spacing (SSP) to improve channel esti-
mation. In order to implement interpolation with SSP, some
other channel estimates

h
(0),Prod
k
between two channel esti-
mates from actual pilot symbols have to be built. We can
use soft information from channel decoder to build these
new channel estimates. However, using only the soft infor-
mation is not very reliable to guarantee the convergence of
the algorithm through iterations. Therefore, a new estimate

h
(0),Prod
k
is proposed that is built by using both the channel
estimate from the initial iteration

h
(0)
k
and the channel esti-
mate based on soft information from the channel decoder

h
(0),S
k
.
Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 24:5968 (2013) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
61
Y. Liu and S. Sezginer
Channel estimate based on pilots
Soft channel estimate
Channel estimate after filter
Iter 2 Iter 1
Pilot
Pilot
"Soft Info"
Figure 4. Iterative frequency interpolation.
For pilot symbol X
P,nn
, the received pilot symbol is
y
P,n
=X
P,nn
h
P,n
n
P,n
(6)
where n
P,n
is an additive white Gaussian noise component
with zero mean and variance 2
2
. Together with (4),
we have
p
_

h
0
P,n
_
~CN
_
h
P,n
;
2
2
[X
P,nn
[
2
_
(7)
where the subscript P represents pilots, the distribution
CN is a complex normal distribution and h
P,n
stands
for the actual channel coefcient for the nth subcarrier.
Because

h
(0)
k
are obtained from

h
0
P,n
through the linear
lter FLTR./ as in (5), it is assumed that the probability
density function (pdf) of channel coefcient in the initial
iteration h
(0)
k
has the same variance as the pdf of

h
0
P,n
, but
the mean value is different as shown in (10).
With the soft information from the channel decoder, the
corresponding channel estimate can be calculated as

h
(0),S
k
=

X
(0)+
kk
y
k
B
[X
(0)
kk
[
2
(8)
where

X
(0)
kk
represents a soft symbol containing a posteri-
ori information (APP) as

X
(0)
kk
=

n
s
n
APP
(0)
.X
kk
=s
n
/ (9)
B
[X
(0)
kk
[
2
=

n
[s
n
[
2
APP
(0)
.X
kk
= s
n
/, and s
n
stands
for a constellation point. Here, it is assumed that the
obtained APP for channel estimation is perfect. Then, the
soft symbol

X
(0)
kk
can be viewed as a virtual pilot sym-
bol and the pdf of the channel estimate based on soft
information p
_
h
(0),S
k
_
also has Gaussian distribution as
the pdf based on pilots. Finally, it can be proved that both
the distribution of channel estimate

h
(0)
k
and that of

h
(0),S
k
are subject to complex Gaussian distribution, that is,
p
_
h
(0)
k
_
~CN
_

h
(0)
k
;
2
2
[X
P,nn
[
2
_
(10)
and
p
_
h
(0),S
k
_
~CN
_
_
_

h
(0),S
k
;
2
2
B
[X
(0)
kk
[
2
_
_
_ (11)
In order to get the channel estimate

h
(0),Prod
k
, we propose
to multiply the two Gaussian distributions in (10) and (11)
and get a new distribution
p
_
h
(0),Prod
k
_
~p
_
h
(0)
k
_
p
_
h
(0),S
k
_
(12)
On the basis of Appendix A, the new distribution is still
a Gaussian distribution with mean value and variance,
respectively, as
[X
P,nn
[
2
h
(0)
k

B
[X
(0)
kk
[
2
h
(0),S
k
[X
P,nn
[
2

B
[X
(0)
kk
[
2
(13)
and
2
2
[X
P,nn
[
2

B
[X
(0)
kk
[
2
(14)
We take the mean value as the value of

h
(0),Prod
k
and imple-
ment the second FI with SSP to get new channel estimates
over all subcarriers,

h
(1)
=FLTR
__

h
(0)
P
;

h
(0),Prod
__
SSP
(15)
The procedure is depicted in Figure 4 with SSP = 3 as
an example, where the vector
_

h
(0)
P
;

h
(0),Prod
_
represents
all channel estimates over the whole OFDM symbol with
appropriate ordering.
62 Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 24:5968 (2013) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
Y. Liu and S. Sezginer
For the subsequent iterations, two methods are proposed
to get

h
(i),Prod
k
:
- Method A: Combine channel estimates from soft
information

h
(i),S
k
with the estimates from ltering
based on pilot symbols

h
(0)
k
. With this method,

h
(i),Prod
k
can be easily obtained from (13)

h
(i),Prod
k
=
[X
P,nn
[
2
h
(0)
k

B
[X
(i)
kk
[
2
h
(i),S
k
[X
P,nn
[
2

B
[X
(i)
kk
[
2
(16)
- Method B: Combine channel estimates from soft
information

h
(i),S
k
with those from the previous
iteration

h
(i-1)
k
and the new distribution can be
expressed as
p
_
h
(i),Prod
k
_
~p
_
h
(i-1)
k
_
p
_
h
(i),S
k
_
(17)
Then, after some derivations, the mean value of this
new distribution becomes

h
.i/;Prod
k
=
_
[A
P;nn
[
2

i1

tD1
A
[A
.t/
kk
[
2
_

h
.i1/
k

A
[A
.i/
kk
[
2
h
.i/;S
k
[A
P;n
[
2

tD1
A
[A
.t/
kk
[
2
.
(18)
However, it is complex to use each
B
[X
(t)
kk
[
2
with
0 6 t 6 i 1. In order to reduce complexity, the
following approximation is used:
i-1

t=1
B
[X
(t)
kk
[
2
~.i 1/E
_
[X
kk
[
2
_
(19)
Denoting E

[X
kk
[
2
_
as E and using (19), (18)
reduces to

h
.i/;Prod
k
~
[A
P;nn
[
2
(i -1)Ej

h
.i1/
k

A
[A
.i/
kk
[
2
h
.i/;S
k
[A
P;n
[
2
(i -1)E
A
[A
.i/
kk
[
2
(20)
Then, together with the channel estimates on pilot posi-
tions from the previous iteration

h
(i)
P,n
, these values will
be used to implement the frequency domain interpola-
tion with an SSP to obtain the channel estimates in the
.i 1/th iteration.
3.2. TSVD-EM algorithm
In this section, a simplied EM channel estimation algo-
rithm is presented that particularly focuses again on the
LTE subframe structure. However, the approach can be
generalised for any kind of practical systems.
3.2.1. Traditional EM in OFDM systems.
The EM algorithm provides a recursive solution to ML
estimation [13], and it performs a two-step procedure
as follows:
(1) E-step: compute the auxiliary function Q
_
g[ g
(i)
_
=
E
k
_
log p . [g/ [y; g
(i)
_
;
(2) M-step: update the parameters g
(i1)
=arg max
g
Q
_
g[ g
(i)
_
,
where g stands for the vector containing the time-domain
channel parameters to be estimated, g
(i)
represents the esti-
mated parameters vector at the i th iteration, y denotes the
observed data vector and is the so-called complete data.
In particular, contains observed data and some missed
data. The EM channel estimation in coded OFDM systems
is performed as [14]

h
(i1)
EM
=
1
_

|
1
R
(i)
11

1
_
-1

|
1

X
(i)+
y (21)
where
1
is a matrix containing the rst L columns of the
FFT matrix, L is the value of channel delay spread,

X rep-
resents a diagonal matrix consisting of soft symbols that
contain the APPs of the transmitted symbol matrix X at the
i th iteration as dened in (9) and
R
(i)
11
=

CQ
APP
i
.X =C/C
+
C (22)
Here, Q represents the set of all possible codeword matri-
ces of X, and the matrix C stands for one realisation
from Q.
3.2.2. TSVD-EM in LTE.
In (21), all subcarriers are considered in EM channel
estimation and small condition numbers [15] are guar-
anteed that is dened as the ratio between the greatest
and the smallest singular values. Such a small condition
number makes the EM channel estimation perform per-
fectly. However, in most practical multi-carrier commu-
nication systems, some null subcarriers are kept to act
as guard band. With these null subcarriers, (21) can be
expressed as

h
(i1)
EM
=
1
DP
_

|
1
DP
R
(i)
1
DP
1
DP

1
DP
_
-1

|
1
DP

X
(i)+
y
(23)
where N
DP
represents the number of modulated subcarri-
ers and
1
DP
contains only the rows of
1
corresponding
to the modulated subcarriers, including data and pilot sym-
bols. In order to reduce the complexity, the SVD method is
used to decompose the matrix
1
DP

1
DP
=UV
|
(24)
Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 24:5968 (2013) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
63
Y. Liu and S. Sezginer
where the matrix U is an N
DP
N
DP
unitary matrix,
the matrix is N
DP
L
DP
diagonal matrix with non-
negative real numbers on the diagonal and V denotes an
L
DP
L
DP
unitary matrix. Using (24), the EM channel
estimate becomes

h
(i1)
SVD-EM
=
1
DP
V
-1
U
|
_
R
(i)
1
DP
1
DP
_
-1

X
(i)+
y
(25)
In (25), because the matrix is not square, the inversion
operation is performed over the non-zero part of . Even
though the SVD method can reduce the complexity of the
EM algorithm, with the matrix
1
DP
, some very small sin-
gular values may exist in the matrix . This can lead to
large condition numbers [15] that result in the so-called
border effect. In order to deal with the null subcarriers,
in [15], a threshold for singular values is set to guarantee a
small condition number for channel estimation with pilots.
In SVD-EM, we also consider only the S singular values
that are greater than the threshold and the corresponding
vectors from matrices U and V. This will be named trun-
cated SVD-EM (TSVD-EM). The corresponding matrices
are denoted as N
DP
S matrix U
s
, L
DP
S matrix V
s
and
S S matrix
s
. Thus, the TSVD-EM can be expressed as

h
(i1)
TSVD-EM
=
1
DP
V
s

-1
s
U
|
s
_
R
(i)
1
DP
1
DP
_
-1

X
(i) +
y
(26)
With proper selection of the threshold, the ill-condition
cases can always be eliminated.
In [16], the MSE property has been analysed based on
(26) and the efciency of the TSVD-EM algorithm has
been shown by some simulation results. In this paper, the
performance of the TSVD-EM will be compared with that
of the SIFI algorithm.
4. COMPLEXITY COMPARISON
In this section, complexities of different algorithms will
be analysed and compared, including conventional non-
iterative method and the proposed iterative algorithms. In
order to compare complexities of different algorithms, the
number of complex multiplications at each iteration for
each algorithm is checked, because complex multiplication
operation is more complicated than other operations and is
the most important factor in evaluating the complexity of
an algorithm.
4.1. Frequency interpolation
To obtain channel estimate of one subcarrier using (1),
the non-iterative FI algorithm needs {L
FLTR
=6 complex
multiplications. Hence, for all modulated subcarriers over
one OFDM symbol, N
DP
{L
FLTR
=6 complex multiplica-
tions are needed. For example, if the lter length is 21 and
the modulated subcarriers are 600, i.e. 50 resource blocks
(RB), the number of complex multiplications needed to
obtain all 600 channel estimates is 600 4 =2400.
4.2. SIFI algorithm
In order to perform frequency interpolation with SSP, new
channel estimates based on soft information have to be
built between two channel estimates based on pilot sym-
bols. From (16) and (18), we see that, for each new chan-
nel estimate, only one complex multiplication is needed.
Then, over one OFDM symbol, the needed complex multi-
plication number is N
DP
=SSP N
DP
=6. Then, for FI, the
number is N
DP
{L
FLTR
=SSP. Consequently, the total
number of complex multiplications becomes N
DP
=SSP
N
DP
=6 N
DP
{L
FLTR
=SSP. For the lter length of 21,
the modulated subcarriers are 600 (50 RB), and SSP is
3, the total number of complex multiplications is 4300 at
each iteration.
4.3. TSVD-EM algorithm
With traditional EM in OFDM systems, the matrix
R
1
DP
1
DP
is always in the matrix inversion. Because the
matrix R
1
DP
1
DP
contains soft information from decoder,
it has to be recalculated and inverted at each iteration. The
complexity of this matrix inversion is O
_
L
3
_
[17], and it
is logical to assume that the number of complex multipli-
cations needed for matrix inversion is L
3
. Furthermore, in
order to obtain the matrix to be inverted, N
DP
L
2
com-
plex multiplications are needed at each iteration. There-
fore, for each inversion, the complexity is N
DP
L
2
L
3
.
After matrix inversion, N
2
DP
complex multiplications are
required to get all channel estimates over all subcarriers.
Therefore, the overall complexity is N
2
DP
N
DP
L
2
L
3
.
In (26), the matrix inversion is not needed anymore.
With TSVD-EM, the matrix computation
1
DP
V
s

-1
s
U
|
s
can be carried out ofine once the threshold of singular
values is set. For a given iteration, we only need to cal-
culate soft information on symbols and multiply with the
pre-calculated matrix. Accordingly, the complexity for
TSVD-EM becomes N
2
DP
complex multiplications at each
iteration. Thus, the complexity is reduced by N
DP
L
2

L
3
compared with the traditional EM, a reduction that can
be signicant considering long delay spread channels expe-
rienced in wireless systems. For example, the delay spread
value L of typical LTE extended typical urban (ETU) chan-
nel model is 80. If the number of modulated subcarriers is
60 (50 RB), the TSVD-EM needs 3:6 10
5
complex mul-
tiplications at each iteration and the difference of complex
multiplications between traditional EM and the TSVD-
EM becomes 4:35 10
6
, which is large and important to
LTE systems.
All algorithms analysed earlier are summarised and
compared in Table I. For the SIFI, TSVD-EM and Tradi-
tional EM algorithms, all equations and numbers indicate
complexities in one iteration.
64 Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 24:5968 (2013) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
Y. Liu and S. Sezginer
Table I. Complexity comparison.
Algorithm Complexity per iteration
Example
N
DP
=600, L =80, L
FLTR
=21, SSP =3
FI N
DP
]L
FLTR
{6| 2400
SIFI N
DP
{SSP -N
DP
{6 N
DP
]L
FLTR
{SSP| 4300
TSVD-EM N
2
DP
3.6 10
5
Traditional EM N
2
DP
N
DP
L
2
L
3
4.71 10
6
FI, frequency interpolation; SIFI, simple iterative frequency interpolation; TSVD-EM, truncated singular value decomposi-
tion expectation-maximisation; EM, expectation-maximisation.
Table II. Simulation parameters.
Parameter Value
FFT size 1024
Number of modulated subcarriers 600
Allocated RB 50
Number of OFDM symbols in one subframe 14
Cyclic prex (samples) 80
Transmission mode SIMO (1 2)
Modulation scheme 16-QAM
Channel coding rate 1{2
Channel coding type Duo-binary turbo code
Channel type ETU70/EVA5 (modied Jakes Doppler spectrum [19])
OFDM, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing.
5. SIMULATION RESULTS
In this section, simulation results are presented to show
the benets of the proposed methods. To assess the
performance of the proposed algorithms, simulations are
conducted over ETU channel model with 70-Hz Doppler
frequency and extended vehicular A (EVA) channel model
with 5-Hz Doppler frequency that are dened in [18]. The
main parameters are summarised in Table II.
In the simulations, the zero forcing equaliser is used.
For the channel estimation on the whole subframe, linear
time interpolation is implemented after frequency domain
channel estimation at each iteration. For the SIFI algo-
rithm, from the second iteration, in order to check the
performance of Methods A and B and the impact of SSP
values, both Methods A and B are simulated with two
different spacing values: SSP = 1 and SSP = 3. For
the TSVD-EM algorithm, initial channel estimation is per-
formed with the FI algorithm. Furthermore, because per-
formances of channel estimators are affected by the a priori
knowledge of channels, simulations with and without per-
fect a priori knowledge are conducted in Sections 5.1 and
5.2, respectively.
5.1. Perfect a priori knowledge of channels
In this section, all results are obtained by assuming that
the perfect a priori knowledge of channels are available.
In Figures 5 and 6, packet error rate (PER) performance
curves are shown over ETU70 and EVA5 channel models.
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0
P
E
R
SNR (dB)
ETU70 PerCSI
FI
SIFI A SSP=3 Iter 5
SIFI A SSP=1 Iter 5
SIFI B SSP=3 Iter 5
SIFI B SSP=1 Iter 5
TSVD-EM Iter 5
Figure 5. Packet error rate performances with 16QAM 1/2 over
ETU70 channel model.
For the proposed iterative algorithms, performances with 5
iterations are shown.
5.1.1. SIFI algorithm.
For the SIFI algorithm, rst, both Methods A and B
converge through iterations with different SSP values. Sec-
ond, as expected, performances with SSP = 1 are better
than those with SSP = 3 for both Methods A and B.
Over ETU70 channel, with Method A, the performance
with SSP = 1 is about 0.5 dB better than that with
SSP = 3; with Method B, the difference is about 0.3 dB.
Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 24:5968 (2013) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
65
Y. Liu and S. Sezginer
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0
P
E
R
SNR (dB)
EVA5 PerCSI
FI
SIFI A SSP=3 Iter 5
SIFI A SSP=1 Iter 5
SIFI B SSP=3 Iter 5
SIFI B SSP=1 Iter 5
TSVD-EM Iter 5
Figure 6. Packet error rate performances with 16QAM 1/2 over
EVA5 channel model.
The improvement comes fromsmaller SSP value that intro-
duces more soft information from the channel decoder to
iterative channel estimation. The more soft information
results in better channel estimates and better system per-
formances. Furthermore, with Figures 5 and 6, we compare
performances of Methods A and B. Over ETU70, Methods
A and B have approximately the same performance with
SSP = 3; however, with SSP = 1, Method A outperforms
Method B about 0.3 dB. Over EVA5, we observe the same
relation as we do over ETU70.
Even though the proposed SIFI algorithm improves the
PER performance, the degradation compared with the per-
formance with perfect channel state information is still
large, about 2 dB at 10
-3
PER over ETU70 channel model
and about 1dB over EVA5 channel model.
5.1.2. TSVD-EM algorithm.
In Figures 5 and 6, we see that the TSVD-EM always
outperforms the SIFI, and the improvement is on the order
of 1 dB. Furthermore, the PER performances of TSVD-
EM approach those with perfect channel state information
by ve iterations.
However, from the analysis in Section 4, the TSVD-EM
has a higher complexity than the SIFI.
5.2. Without a priori knowledge
of channels
As presented in Section 3.1, the proposed SIFI algorithm
does not need any a priori knowledge of channels. How-
ever, the TSVD-EM algorithm needs the channel delay
spread L to decide the size of the matrix
1
DP
and to
perform the corresponding SVD. In Figure 7, the perfor-
mances of TSVD-EM without knowing the exact delay
spread are compared with those of SIFI. For the TSVD-
EM, different delay spread values are considered in simu-
lations, including L, L5, L15 and L=2.
From Figure 7, we see that the PER performance
degrades when considered delay spread values are smaller
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0
P
E
R
SNR (dB)
ETU70 PerCSI
FI
SIFI A SSP=1 Iter 5
TSVD-EM ( L) Iter 5
TSVD-EM ( L+5) Iter 5
TSVD-EM (L-15) Iter 5
TSVD-EM ( L/2) Iter 5
Figure 7. Packet error rate performances with 16QAM 1/2 over
ETU70 channel model.
than the exact value. At 10
-2
PER, the degradation is
about 2 dB with the value L15 and about 1 dB with the
value L=2. However, if the considered value is greater than
the exact one, for example, L5 as shown in Figure 7, the
performance of the TSVD-EM is very close to that with the
exact value of delay spread. Compared with the SIFI algo-
rithm, the TSVD-EM has some degradation with smaller
delay spread values. For example, at 10
-2
PER, the TSVD-
EM with the delay spread value L=2 has almost the same
performance as the SIFI; with the value L15, the TSVD-
EM performs even worse than the SIFI. However, when the
value is greater than the exact value, the TSVD-EM always
outperforms the SIFI algorithm, about 1 dB improvement
with the value L5 at 10
-2
PER.
In practice, it is not possible to obtain the exact value
of delay spread but possible to estimate it. Because the
TSVD-EMis sensitive to the value of channel delay spread,
the accuracy of delay spread estimation is important to
the TSVD-EM algorithm. A large constant value can also
be set for the TSVD-EM to avoid the delay spread esti-
mation. For OFDM-based systems, the value can be the
length of cyclic prex that is normally greater than channel
delay spread.
6. CONCLUSION
In this paper, two iterative channel estimation algorithms
are proposed for LTE systems. Both of them are derived
from the non-iterative conventional interpolation algorithm
that performs frequency domain estimation rst followed
by a linear time domain interpolation. The rst proposed
algorithm is named SIFI that used both the channel esti-
mates from pilot symbols and the soft information from
channel decoders to perform frequency domain interpola-
tion with an SSP starting from the second iteration. The
second algorithm is TSVD-EM that integrates the tra-
ditional EM channel estimation in OFDM systems with
the truncated singular value decomposition. Complexi-
ties of the two algorithms are analysed and compared:
66 Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 24:5968 (2013) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
Y. Liu and S. Sezginer
the SIFI algorithm has a low complexity and the TSVD-
EM reduces the complexity from the traditional EM algo-
rithm. Simulation results show that both the SIFI and
the TSVD-EM algorithms improve system performances
through iterations.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research leading to these results has received funding
from the European Commissions seventh framework pro-
gramme FP7-ICT-2009 under grant agreement no. 247223
also referred to as ARTIST4G.
APPENDIX A: DERIVATION OF
GAUSSIAN DISTRIBUTION
From (10), (11) and (12), the distribution of h
(0),Prod
k
can
be expressed as
p
_
h
(0),Prod
k
_
~CN
_

h
(0)
k
;
2 (0)
_
CN
_

h
(0),S
k
;
2 (0),S
_
(A.1)
where
2 (0)
=
2c
2
[A
P;nn
[
2
and
2 (0),S
=
2c
2
A
[A
.0/
kk
[
2
,
and where
2 (0)
= 2
2
=[X
P,nn
[
2
and
2 (0),S
=
2
2
=
B
[X
(0)
kk
[
2
. Using the denition of Gaussian distribu-
tion, (A.1) can be expended as
p
_
h
(0),Prod
k
_
~exp
_

1
2
2 (0)

h
(0),Prod
k


h
(0)
k

2
_
exp
_

1
2
2 (0),S

h
(0),Prod
k


h
(0),S
k

2
_
~exp
_
_
_

2 (0)

2 (0),S
2
2 (0)

2 (0),S
_
_

h
(0),Prod
k

2
2me
_
_
_

2 (0)
h
(0),S
k

2 (0),S
h
(0)
k

2 (0)

2 (0),S
h
(0),Prod+
k
_
_
_

2 (0)

h
(0),S
k

2 (0),S

h
(0)
k

2 (0)

2 (0),S
_

_
_

_
~exp
_

2 (0)

2 (0),S
2
2 (0)

2 (0),S
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_

h
(0),Prod
k


2 (0)
h
(0),S
k

2 (0),S
h
(0)
k

2 (0)

2 (0),S

2 (0)

h
(0),S
k

2 (0),S

h
(0)
k

2 (0)

2 (0),S

_
_

2 (0)
h
(0),S
k

2 (0),S
h
(0)
k

2 (0)

2 (0),S
_
_
2

irrelevant to h
.0/;Prod
k
_

_
_

_
~exp
_

2 (0)

2 (0),S
2
2 (0)

2 (0),S

h
(0),Prod
k


2 (0)
h
(0),S
k

2 (0),S
h
(0)
k

2 (0)

2 (0),S

2
_

_
(A.2)
The term at the right-hand side of (A.2) is irrelevant to the
variable h
(0),Prod
k
and all the parameters in this item are
from previous iteration that keep constant in the current
iteration. Thus, considering the normalisation of a pdf, this
irrelevant item can be neglected. Then, the mean value and
variance of the new distribution are obtained as in (13).
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