International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 8

ISSN: 2321-8169
2190 2193

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Pilot Assisted and Blind Channel Estimation in OFDM for Rayleigh Fading
Channel
G.Lohitha

M.Vijaya Lakshmi

Dr.K.Rama Linga Reddy

PG Scholar, Dept of ETM

GNITS
Hyderabad, A.P, India.
lohithasony@gmail.com

Assistant Professor, Dept of ETM

GNITS
Hyderabad, A.P, India.
vijayapvsp@gmail.com

Professor and HOD, Dept of ETM

GNITS
Hyderabad, A.P, India.
Kattareddy2000@yahoo.com

Abstract In modern wireless communication, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) can achieve frequency diversity and high
spectral efficiency. Pilot assisted and blind channel estimation techniques for Rayleigh fading channel for OFDM system are proposed in this
paper. The pilot assisted channel estimation using block type pilot arrangement is carried out with Least square (LS) and Minimum mean square
(MMSE) estimation algorithms. The blind channel estimation using precoding matrix is estimated at the receiver based on general SVD
operations. The performance of pilot assisted and blind channel estimation are compared based on mean square error (MSE) for OFDM system.

Keywords- : OFDM, Channel estimation, mean square error

__________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________
I.

INTRODUCTION

The performance of wireless communication systems is

mainly governed by the wireless channel environment. The
wireless channel is dynamic and unpredictable, which makes
an exact analysis of the wireless communication system often
difficult. In recent years, optimization of the wireless
communication system has become critical with the rapid
growth of mobile communication services and emerging
broadband mobile Internet access services. In fact the
understanding of wireless channels will lay the foundation for
the development of high performance and bandwidth-efficient
wireless transmission technology. Mobile communication
systems transmit bits of information which leads to change of
amplitude or phase at the receiver side of mobile system. This
results in degradation of the signal quality at the receiver, as
the performance of the receiver is highly dependent on the
accuracy of the estimated channel. The multipath fading
channels cause inter symbol interference (ISI) in the received
signal. The detection algorithms should have the knowledge of
channel impulse response to remove ISI from the signal at the
receiver. The channel estimation is based on the known
repeated sequence of bits in every transmission burst and the
corresponding received samples.
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a
multi-carrier modulation and multiplexing technique which is
used to transmit high data rate through wireless channels. The
transmitter modulates the message bit sequence into
PSK/QAM symbols, performs IFFT on the symbols and
cyclic prefix is added. So that Inter symbol interference (ISI)
and inter carrier interference (ICI) are eliminated. Spectral
efficiency can be achieved in OFDM by using orthogonal
subcarriers.
The channel can be estimated by using pilot symbols known
to both transmitter and receiver. The different algorithms to
estimate channel state information are pilot assisted or training
based, blind and semi blind channel estimation. Blind channel
estimation uses the statistical properties of received signals,
the channel can be estimated without resorting to the preamble

or pilot signals [3]. Such a blind channel estimation technique

has an advantage of not incurring an overhead with training
signals. However, it often needs a large number of received
symbols to extract statistical properties. The pilot assisted
channel estimation training symbols are known to both
transmitter and receiver. The semi blind channel estimation is
a hybrid combination of blind channel estimation and training
based channel estimation.
The pilot assisted channel estimation is performed by block
type pilot arrangement. In block type pilot arrangement,
OFDM symbols with pilots at all subcarriers are transmitted
periodically for channel estimation [4]. Since pilot tones are
inserted into all subcarriers of pilot symbols with a period in
time, the block type pilot arrangement is suitable for slow
fading channels. The channel estimations techniques LS and
MMSE are compared.The blind channel estimation uses
nonredundant linear precoder applied to each source data
block before the conventional OFDM transmission. Due to this
structure the channel can be estimated at the receiver based on
general SVD operations.
II.

PILOT ASSISTED CHANNEL ESTIMATION

The block diagram of channel estimation in OFDM is shown

in figure 1. In OFDM system the transmitter modulates the
message bit sequence in to PSK symbols and performs pilot
insertion, IFFT and cyclic prefix is added and sends them
through wireless channel. The received signal is usually
distorted by the channel characteristics. In order to recover the
transmitted bits, the channel effect must be estimated in the
receiver. The orthogonality allows each subcarrier component
of the received signal to be expressed as the product of the
transmitted signal and channel frequency response at the
subcarrier. Thus, the transmitted signal can be recovered by
estimating the channel response just at each subcarrier. At the
receiver cyclic prefix is removed and FFT is performed for
each parallel path and then channel estimation and
demodulation are performed.
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_______________________________________________________________________________________

International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 8

ISSN: 2321-8169
2190 2193

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
are the cross covariance between h and y and auto covariance
of y respectively. 2 is noise variance and IN is N X N identity
matrix.
N 00

0(1)
F=
(7)

1 0 1 (1)
H = [H(0),H(1),H(N-1)]T
(8)
W = [W(0),W(1),W(N-1)]T
(9)
n = transmitting antena, m = receiving antenna and X(n) is N X
N diagonal matrix and Y(m) is received vector at receiver
antenna m.
III.
Figure 1. Channel estimation in OFDM system
In pilot assisted channel estimation algorithms, pilots are
known to both transmitter and receiver that are multiplexed
along with data for channel estimation. A block type pilot
arrangement is depicted in figure 2. In this type OFDM
symbols with pilots at all subcarriers are transmitted
periodically for channel estimation. Let St denote the period of
pilot symbols in time. In order to keep the track of the time
varying channel characteristics, the pilot symbols must be
placed as frequently as the coherence time. Coherence time is
inverse form of Doppler frequency. Since pilot tones are
inserted into all subcarriers of pilot symbols the block type
pilot arrangement is suitable for frequency selective channels.

BLIND CHANNEL ESTIMATION

In Blind channel estimation a nonredundant linear

precoder is applied to each source data block before the
conventional OFDM transmission. Due to the structure
introduced by the precoding matrix, the channel can be
estimated at the receiver based on general SVD operations.
The block diagram of blind channel estimation is shown in
figure 3. The kth block data d(k) is generated as
Di(k) = [d[kM], d[kM+1],d[kM+M-1]]T
(10)
Where M is the number of subcarriers. It is assumed that the
transmitted signals are with zero mean and unit variance. A
MxM precoding matrix A is applied to each block mapping
them as,
S(k)=Ad(k)
(11)
The precoding matrix A should satisfy that AAH has unit
diagonal elements and no zero elements.

Figure 3. Blind channel estimation in OFDM system

Figure 2. Block Type Pilot

The least square channel estimation for MIMO-OFDM system
between nth transmitter and mth receiver is given by the
following equation
(, )

( )

= ( )
(1)

X= diag { X(0),X(1),X(N-1)}
(2)
Y={Y(0),Y(1),Y(N-1)}T
(3)
MMSE channel estimation for MIMO-OFDM system between
nth transmitter and mth receiver is
(, )

= 1 ( )
Where
hy = ( ,) ( () )
= () (, ) ( () ) + 2

(4)
(5)
(6)

Assume P is an arbitrary MxM full rank and symmetric matrix

with unit diagonal elements. Denote the SVD of P as
P = U VH
(12)
Since P is full rank, then U1/2VH is also full rank. Thus, the
precoding matrix can be designed as
A = U1/2VH
(13)
The channel matrix can be defined as
H = diag([H(0),H(M-1)]
(14)
H[M]= Ll=0 h(l)ej2ml /M
(15)
m=0,1,M-1, L= channel order
The received signals after removing CP and FFT
demodulation is given by
Y=H S + Z
(16)
Where Z is zero mean white Gaussian noise with variance 2
Consider the correlation matrix of the received signal
Ry = E{yyH}
(17)
= E{(HS+V)(HS+V)H}
(18)
= HAAHHH+ 2 I
(19)
= HHH AAH
(20)
Where means element by element multiplication
Assume A is full rank , while AAH has unit diagonal elements
and no zero entries we can perform element by element
division of Ry with AAH
2191

IJRITCC | August 2014, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org

_______________________________________________________________________________________

International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 8

ISSN: 2321-8169
2190 2193

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Rj = Ry./ (AAH) = HHH + 2 I
(21)
Where ./ is the element by element division . The equation can
be rewritten as
Rj = HHH + 2 I
(22)
The singular value decomposition (SVD) of Rj can be used to
estimate the channel matrix. The SVD of Rj given as

Rj = [Us U0]
+ 2 I Vs V0 H
(23)
0
He can be estimated by
1/2
He = U s = H Q j
(24)
Where Q j is the constant unitary ambiguity matrix.
IV.

SIMULATION

The parameters used in simulation of OFDM system are

indicated in Table 1.simulations are carried out for different
signal to noise ratios.
Parameters
Specifications
Signal Constellation
BPSK
FFT Size
64
Pilot Ratio

Pilot Type
Block
Guard Interval
16
Guard Type
Cyclic Extension
Channel Model
Rayleigh Fading
LS,MMSE,Blind channel
Channel Estimation
estimation

Figure 4. SER for LS/MMSE estimation of OFDM system

The performance of channel estimation in OFDM is evaluated

by Mean Square Error. The instantaneous mean square error is
defined as average error with in OFDM block that can be
expressed as
1

MSE =
| He (k)|2
(14)
=1
Where K is the index of the subcarrier and He(k) is estimated
by the value of channel estimation.
Figure 4 shows the symbol error rate (SER) for LS and
MMSE channel estimation algorithm of OFDM. It is observed
that LS has high SER compared to MMSE channel estimation
OFDM system.
Figure 5 shows the mean square error for LS and MMSE
channel estimation algorithms of OFDM. It is observed that
MMSE has low MSE compared to LS channel estimation in
OFDM system.
Figure 6 shows the mean square error for blind channel
estimation algorithms of OFDM. It is observed that blind
channel estimation has high MSE compared to LS and MMSE
channel estimation in OFDM system.

Figure 5. MSE for LS/MMSE estimation of OFDM system

Figure 6. MSE for blind channel estimation of OFDM system

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IJRITCC | August 2014, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org

_______________________________________________________________________________________

International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 2 Issue: 8

ISSN: 2321-8169
2190 2193

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
V. CONCLUSION

[15]

T. Rappaport, Wireless Communications, Principles and

Practice Prentice Hall, 2009

In this paper pilot assisted and blind channel

estimation for OFDM system for a Rayleigh fading channel
are compared. The two pilot assisted channel estimation
algorithms LS and MMSE are applied and simulation is
performed. The simulation results shows that MMSE
estimation has less MSE than LS estimation in OFDM
system. Blind channel estimation has high MSE than LS and
MMSE for OFDM system. So pilot assisted channel
estimaton has better performance than blind channel
estimaton in OFDM for a Rayleigh fading channel.
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