Semiblind channel estimation for pulse-based ultra-wideband wireless communication systems

This paper proposes an H_∞ based semiblind channel estimation algorithm for pulse-based ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communication systems. In the proposed scheme, sparsely inserted periodic pilot symbols are exploited to adapt to not only the time-varying channel fading and noise processes but to their changing statistics and potential external disturbances, such as interference. While the existing optimal filtering-based channel estimation schemes, which are optimized mostly for traditional narrowband or wideband systems, require a priori knowledge of the channel and noise statistics, the proposed scheme does not. By further making full use of the channel characteristics unique in UWB systems, the proposed method is thus especially useful for robust operation in the highly frequency-selective UWB indoor channels for which the channel statistics are environment-dependent, and the noise processes do not necessarily satisfy the white Gaussian distribution in the presence of potential narrowband and multiuser interferences. Performance gain of the proposed scheme over the least square method, an existing technique that could also be applied to UWB channels with unknown statistics, and the Wiener filter-based algorithm is also provided.