STAR channel estimation in DS-CDMA communication systems

A novel blind DS-CDMA array channel estimator is presented which is capable of handling severe frequency-selective channels, where the multipath delay spread can be comparable with the data symbol period. By employing the concept of the spatiotemporal array (STAR) manifold, a subspace-type estimation algorithm is proposed, in conjunction with an one-dimensional temporal smoothing procedure, to jointly estimate the spatiotemporal multipath-channel parameters associated with the desired user. Close examination of the proposed STAR channel estimator reveals that it is ´near-far´ resistant and the total number of signal paths can be more than the number of antenna elements. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is supported by computer simulation results.