A MIMO-OFDM channel estimation approach using time of arrivals

Channel estimation is critical in designing multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems for coherent detection and decoding. We propose a channel estimation scheme based on time of arrivals (TOAs) estimation. The TOAs are first determined using a variant of probabilistic data association (PDA) and employing the minimum description length principle, then the PDA is augmented by group decision feedbacks to refine the TOA estimates. With the channels of typical urban and hilly terrain delay profiles, simulation results, compared with the alternating projection (AP) and the Fourier transform based methods, show that the proposed scheme provides a promising accuracy-complexity trade-off for MIMO OFDM channel estimation.