Iterative Channel Estimation for Unique-Word Based Single-Carrier Block Transmission

Accurate channel estimation is essential for coherent single-carrier (SC) block transmission systems. In this paper, we propose novel iterative algorithms for estimating the channel impulse response (CIR) in SC block transmission systems by exploiting a unique word (UW) extension. The interference caused by the data to the UW is removed from the received signal by first equalizing the data using a previous channel estimate, and then subtracting the estimated interference signal from each received signal block. Erasure decision is used to improve the performance and the effects of error propagation is reduced. Simulation results show that the proposed channel estimation method brings good BER performance with fast convergence over frequency-selective slowly fading channels.