An iterative channel estimation and symbol detection procedure with improved performance by observation separation

We propose a new iterative channel estimation and symbol detection procedure for the multipath fading channel and a coded packet oriented transmission system. The observation used for channel estimation is partially decoupled from the observation that allows the symbol detection. For the feedback loop, the soft or hard decision of the channel decoder output is employed. An application of this procedure to the UMTS-TDD system shows that an important performance improvement is obtained.