Blind Channel Estimation for Systems with Maximum-Ratio Receiver Combining

This paper presents a new iterative blind channel estimation technique for systems employing maximum-ratio combining with correlated receive antennas operating over Rayleigh flat fading channels. A decision algorithm first obtains a primary data estimate of the transmitted symbol based on the constrained linear minimum mean square error criterion. Then this estimate is applied to subsequent optimal minimum mean square error channel estimation. Performance is evaluated by simulation and favorable comparison is presented with the known results of optimal coherent detection as well as a known blind technique which employs Kalman filtering to track the channel. The impact of antenna cross correlation is also investigated by simulation.