Semi-blind channel estimation for MIMO single carrier with frequency domain equalization systems

We propose a semi-blind channel estimation method for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) single carrier with frequency domain equalization systems. By taking advantage of periodic precoding and the block circulant channel model after cyclic prefix removal, we obtain the channel product matrices by solving a series of decoupled linear systems, which is gained from the covariance matrix of the received data. Then the channel impulse response matrix is obtained by computing the positive eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a Hermitian matrix formed from the channel product matrices. We also propose an optimal design of the precoding sequence which minimizes the noise effect and numerical error in covariance matrix estimation. Simulations are used to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.