Channel estimation with a priori position for aeronautical communications via a satellite link

In this paper, we investigate on some efficient channel estimation methods for the aeronautical multipaths channel. The proposed methods exploit both the particular form of the channel impulse response and a priori knowledge of some parameters (mainly delays) that can be inferred from geometrical considerations based on geolocation. The first estimation method is based on a parametric multipath channel model while the second tries to exploit the relative sparsity of the channel impulse response. In both cases, this reduces the number of variables to be estimated and it provides better performance compared to a direct classical least-square estimation of the discrete equivalent channel impulse response.