Analysis and design of low density parity check codes for non-coherent block fading channels

This paper derives an iterative receiver for noncoherent fading channels that exhibit block fading with correlation between blocks. Pilot symbols and Kalman smoothing are used in conjunction with sum-product decoding of LDPC codes to implement an iterative channel estimation and decoding structure. Density evolution is employed to analyze the performance of such a structure and to optimize the degree profile of LDPC codes. The resulting receiver performs significantly better than receivers in which channel estimation and decoding are carried out in a tandem (non-iterative) fashion