Performance of iterative data detection and channel estimation for single-antenna and multiple-antennas wireless communications

In iterative data-detection and channel-estimation algorithms, the channel estimator and the data detector recursively exchange information in order to improve the system performance. While a vast bulk of the available literature demonstrates the merits of iterative schemes through computer simulations, in this paper analytical results on the performance of an iterative detection/estimation scheme are presented. In particular, this paper focus is on uncoded systems and both the situations that the receiver and the transmitter are equipped with either a single antenna or multiple antennas are considered. With regard to the channel estimator, the analysis considers both the minimum mean square error and the maximum likelihood channel estimate, while, with regard to the data detector, linear receiver interfaces are considered. Closed-form formulas are given for the channel-estimation mean-square error and for its Crame´r-Rao bound, as well as for the error probability of the data detector. Moreover, the problem of the optimal choice of the length of the training sequence is also addressed. Overall, results show that the considered iterative strategy achieves excellent performance and permits, at the price of some complexity increase, the use of very short training sequences without incurring any performance loss. Finally, computer simulations reveal that the experimental results are in perfect agreement with those predicted by the theoretical analysis.