A novel approach for iterative channel estimation using data symbols of space-time block codes

A novel approach for channel fading parameters (CFP) estimation using frame-based iterative technique exploiting orthogonal property of the space-time block (STB) code is proposed in this paper. To Implement STB coded system, the receiver needs to estimate these parameters. The inherent orthogonal nature of STB code can be exploited in this case to simplify multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) CFP estimation technique. While modified decision-directed (MDD) iterative CFP estimation updates estimated parameters throughout the frame, proposed frame-based (FB) iterative CFP estimation technique updates estimated CFP parameters once in each iteration after decoding the whole frame. Simulation results show significant improvement in terms of error rate using proposed methodology for STB code alone, which will have similar performance improvements for concatenated space-time turbo codes. The proposed scheme uses fewer or no overhead pilot symbols and provide near perfect lower bound performance at the cost of increased receiver complexity and processing time