Moment-Based SNR Estimation for SIMO Wireless Communication Systems Using Arbitrary QAM

A new method for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation is considered when multiple receiving antenna elements receive quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals in complex additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) spatially and temporally white (uncorrelated between antenna elements). In this paper, we also present the extension of other existing methods to the single input multiple output (SIMO) configuration. The procedure is non-data-aided (NDA) since it is a moment- based method and does not require, therefore, the a priori knowledge or the detection of the transmitted symbols. Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) as a measure of performance. The new method is shown to outperform the best NDA moment-based SNR estimation methods, namely the M₂M₄ and Gao´s methods even when they are extended to the SIMO configuration.