Optimal Uplink Pilot Time Interval Design for TDD MISO Beamforming Systems with Channel Estimation Error and Delay

This paper proposes an optimization scheme on uplink pilots time interval (UPTI) in terms of maximum average post-processing SNR (signal to noise ratio) for a time division duplex (TDD) multiple input single output (MISO) beamforming system with channel estimation error and delay. In TDD system, the base station estimates the channel state information (CSI) at transmitter based on uplink pilots and then uses it to generate the beamforming vector in the downlink transmission. Because of the constraints of the TDD frame structure and the uplink pilot overhead, there inevitably exists delay and channel estimation error between CSI estimation and its use. In this paper, we first derive average post-processing SNR for TDD MISO beamforming system with channel estimation error and delay. We then obtain the optimal UPTI, which maximizes average post-processing SNR, given the normalized pilot overhead (the number of pilot symbols per data symbol). The simulation results validate that the optimal UPTI not only maximizes the average post-processing SNR but also maximizes the system ergodic rate. Especially our research is valuable for the uplink sounding reference signal design in LTE-Advanced system.