Efcient DFT-based channel estimation for OFDM

systems on multipath channels

Y. Kang, K. Kim and H. Park
Abstract: An improved discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-based channel estimation for orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing systems is proposed. Conventional DFT-based channel esti-
mations improve the performance by suppressing time domain noise. However, they potentially
require information on channel impulse responses and may also result in mean-square error
(MSE) oor due to incorrect channel information such as channel delay spread. In contrast, our
purposed channel estimation can improve the performance by deciding signicant channel taps
adaptively without requiring any channel statistical information. Signicant channel taps
are detected on the basis of a predetermined threshold. The optimal threshold to reduce the
MSE of the estimation is also derived, and it is conrmed by computer simulation. Simulation
results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can improve the MSE performance 6.5 dB
compared with the conventional DFT-based estimation, and the MSE oor is not observed in
any channels.
1 Introduction
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has
the most promise as a future high data rate wireless com-
munication system due to its advantage in high bit-rate
transmission over a time dispersive channels. However, to
obtain high spectral efciency, it is necessary to employ
multilevel modulation schemes with non-constant ampli-
tude (e.g. 16-QAM). They require coherent demodulation
that needs to estimate and tracks parameters of fading
channel. To achieve this, several channel estimation
methods are studied and these methods can be divided
into two categories. Frequency domain methods, especially
the least square (LS) or the linear minimum mean-square
error (LMMSE) estimation [1], are included in the rst cat-
egory. The LS estimation is the simplest channel estimation
based on parallel Gaussian channel model in frequency
domain. Since the LS does not use any information about
channels, the performance is not quite acceptable. The
LMMSE estimation can achieve better performance by
using channel statistics such as channel covariance matrix
in frequency domain and average signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR). Moreover, since the LMMSE estimation requires
very large amount of computation, such as matrix inversion,
there are many attempts to reduce the complexity of the
LMMSE. Edfors et al. [1] reduce the computational com-
plexity of a LMMSE channel estimation by means of a
singular value decomposition. Noh et al. [2] also propose
a low-complexity LMMSE estimation method by partition-
ing off channel covariance matrix into some small matrices
on the basis of coherent bandwidth. However, these modi-
ed LMMSE methods have still quite high-computational
complexity for practical implementation and require exact
channel covariance matrices.
The second category of channel estimation focuses on the
transform domain by using the discrete Fourier transform
(DFT) processing. Zhao and Huang [3] introduce additional
DFT processing to obtain the frequency response of LS esti-
mated channel. In contrast to the frequency domain esti-
mation, the transform domain estimation method uses the
time domain properties of channels. Since a channel
impulse response (CIR) is not longer than the guard interval
in OFDM system, the LS and the LMMSE are modied in
[4, 5] by limiting the number of channel taps in time
domain. Dowler et al. [6] show the performance of
various channel estimation methods and yield that the
DFT-based estimation can achieve signicant performance
benets if the maximum channel delay is known. Minn
and Bhargava [7] improve upon this idea by considering
only the most signicant channel taps. This method,
however, can achieve performance improvement only
when the channel is sparse, and it is based on statistical
channel parameters such as maximum channel delay time
or channel sparsity. Further, these methods in [4, 5, 7]
result in MSE oor in high SNR due to energy loss
caused by missing informative channel taps. Similarly,
Athaudage and Jayalath [8] propose a novel delay spread
estimation method using cyclic prex (CP) that can be
useful to improve the DFT-based estimation. However,
this method requires many OFDM symbols to estimate the
accurate delay spread, making it unsuitable for the real-time
applications.
In this paper, we propose a modied DFT-based channel
estimation algorithm to cope with the MSE oor and
increase the estimation accuracy. In the proposed algorithm,
to nd all informative channel taps, we detect signicant
channel taps and determine adaptively the maximum
channel delay time with respect to a threshold. The
threshold is obtained in order to reduce MSE of estimation
and is related to time domain noise power. Hence, the pro-
posed channel estimation requires two additional blocks.
# The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2007
doi:10.1049/iet-com:20050337
Paper rst received 8th July 2005 and in revised form 4th April 2006
Y. Kang is with the Digital Broadcasting Research Division of the Electronics
Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Daejeon 305-700, Republic of
Korea
K. Kim and H. Park are with the School of Engineering, Information and
Communications University, Daejeon 305-726, Republic of Korea
E-mail: hpark@icu.ac.kr
IET Commun., 2007, 1, (2), pp. 197202 197
One is noise power estimator block and the other is signi-
cant channel tap detector (SCTD) block.
2 System model and channel estimation
2.1 System description
We consider an OFDM system that consists of N subcarriers
and each subcarrier consists of data symbol X[k], where k
represents the subcarrier index. The OFDM transmitter
uses an inverse DFT (IDFT) of size N for modulation.
Then the transmitted OFDM signal in discrete-time
domain can be expressed as
xn
1
N

N1
k0
Xk exp j2p
nk
N
_ _
; 0 n N 1 1
where n is the time domain sample index of an OFDM
signal. To avoid inter-symbol interference and consequent
inter-carrier interference, a CP is appended to the OFDM
symbol. After passing through a multipath channel and
removing CP, one received discrete-time domain OFDM
signal y[n] is represented by
yn xn hn wn; 0 n N 1 2
where denotes cyclic convolution operation, w[n] is
independent and identically distributed additive white
Gaussian noise (AWGN) sample in time domain with zero
mean and variance s
2
wt
Ejwnj
2
and h[n] is the discrete-
time CIR given by
hn

L1
l0
a
l
d n l 3
where a
l
represents a different path complex gain that is
complex Gaussian, l is the index of the different path delay
that is based on sampling time interval, which means there is
no channel power loss caused by sampling time mismatch [9]
and L is the length of the CIR. For simplicity, time
dependence nature of the CIR is suppressed in the notation.
At the receiver, we assume that the guard interval is longer
than the maximum channel delay and the synchronisation is
perfect. Then, the kth subcarrier output in frequency domain
can be represented by
Yk XkHk Wk; 0 k N 1 4
where W[k] is AWGN sample in frequency domain with zero
meanand variance s
wf
2
Ns
wt
2
[10] andH[k] is the channel fre-
quency response given by
Hk

L1
l0
a
l
exp j2p
kl
N
_ _
; 0 k N 1 5
2.2 LS channel estimation
Coherent detection requires knowledge of the sampled
channel frequency response H[k]. In (4), a simple technique
to estimate H[k] is to send preamble or pilot signals X[k] at
all subcarriers. Then the channel frequency response in all
subchannels can be estimated by
^
H
LS
k
Yk
Xk
Hk
Wk
Xk
; 0 k N 1 6
This channel estimation algorithm is called the LS
estimation. Since LS does not make use of any channel
information, no noise power is depressed. As a result, the
LS estimation has a large MSE, which does not guarantee
a satisfactory performance. The individual MSE of kth sub-
carrier [5] is
MSE
LS
k
b
SNR
7
where SNR EjXkj
2
=s
2
wf
is the average SNR and
b EjXkj
2
EjXkj
2
is a constant depending on
signal constellation.
2.3 DFT-based channel estimation
DFT-based channel estimation exploits a property of
OFDM systems having the symbol period much longer
than the duration of the CIR. Since the estimated CIR
from LS has most of its power concentrated on a few rst
samples, the DFT-based estimation reduces the noise
power that exists in only outside of the CIR part.
The basic block diagram of DFT-based estimation is
shown in Fig. 1. The nth estimated sample of CIR can be
expressed with the LS estimation, then we have
^
h
LS
n IDFT
N
f
^
H
LS
kg; 0 n N 1
hn ~ wn 8
where IDFT
N
f
.
g indicates N-point IDFT and w [n]
IDFT
N
fW[k]/X[k]g. The CIR is typically limited to the
length of CIR L which is less than the guard interval and
much smaller compared with the number of subcarrier N.
Conventionally, the CIR can be described as
hn
IDFT
N
fHkg; 0 n L 1
0; L n N 1
_
9
By using (9) and (8) can be divided into two parts: CIR part
and noise-only existing part, then we have
^
h
LS
n
hn ~ wn; if 0 n L 1
~ wn; otherwise
_
10
As shown in (9), all information of channels is contained in
the rst L samples and other samples are only noise. Hence
taking the rst L samples only and ignoring noise-only
samples, we can obtain a better performance. Expressing
these processes in equations, we obtain
^
h
DFT
n
hn ~ wn; if 0 n L 1
0; otherwise
_
11
From (11), the DFT-based channel estimation is denoted as
^
H
DFT
k DFT
N
^
h
DFT
n
_ _
; 0 k N 1 12
With assumption that channels have sample-spaced
impulse, the individual MSE of DFT-based channel esti-
mation [5] is given as
MSE
DFT
k
L
N
b
SNR
13
where N is constant but L is usually unknown variable
depending on channel environments. For example, bad
urban has almost two times larger L than typical urban
[11]. To express this property, we dene two parameters
of the channels
L
a
is the length of the CIR at the present channel and
L
max
is the maximum value among the L
a.
As shown in (13), the conventional DFT-based channel
estimation reduces the MSE to a fraction L/N compared
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 2, April 2007 198
with the LS estimation. However, if we set L as an arbitrary
value, which is smaller than L
a
, MSE will increase signi-
cantly by losing the energy in the missing channel taps [4].
As a result, we should take L as L
max
to prevent the MSE
oor regardless of the lengths of channel impulse responses,
which vary as channel environments. However, in this case,
the MSE of conventional DFT-based channel estimation is
xed as (L
max
/N) (b/SNR), even though L
a
is much
smaller than L
max
. On the contrary, if we adaptively
choose L as the length of the present channel (L L
a
), we
can expect the better performance with small L
a
. Hence,
we propose an improved estimation algorithm in the next
section on the basis of this idea.
3 Proposed channel estimation
To estimate an unknown CIR that varies according to
channel environments, proposed channel estimation has
two additional blocks: the noise power estimator block
and the SCTD, as shown in Fig. 2. First, in the noise
power estimator, we estimate the time domain noise
power by averaging the noise-only existing part and
decide the threshold (l), which will be used in SCTD.
Expressing the noise estimation in equation, we have
s
2
wt

1
N L
max

N1
nL
max
j
^
h
LS
nj
2

1
N L
max

N1
nL
max
j ~ wnj
2
With this estimated noise power in the SCTD, we detect sig-
nicant channel taps. Since L
max
is the largest channel
length, we consider signicant channel tap decisions just
in the region 0 n L
max
21. The decision rule is as
follows
^
h
prop
n
^
h
LS
n; if P
LS
n . l
0; otherwise
_
14
where P
LS
n j
^
h
LS
nj
2
represents the power of nth
channel tap and l is the threshold deciding the signicant
channel taps. As a result, the performance of proposed
method depends on the threshold. To decide the optimal
threshold, we compare MSE of two alternative cases of
(14); no-substitution case and zero-substitution case. First,
we consider no-substitution case. As mentioned previously,
since we do not know the impulse response of the present
channel, we take the L as L
max
to prevent the MSE oor.
From (13), the individual MSE of kth subcarrier is
MSE
DFT
k
L
max
N
b
SNR
15
In the second case, we substitute gth arbitrary channel tap as
zero. As derived in (Section 8), the individual MSE of the
zero-substituted channel
^
h
zero
n is
MSE
zero
k s
2
h
g
L
max
1
N

b
SNR
;
0 n N 1
16
From (15) and (16), it is obvious that MSE is reduced with
zero-substitution, if MSE
zero
MSE
DFT
, 0; that is
MSE
zero
MSE
DFT
s
2
h
g
1
N

b
SNR
, 0 17
Fig. 2 Block diagram of the proposed algorithm
Fig. 1 Block diagram of the conventional DFT-based channel estimation [4]
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 2, April 2007 199
where 1/Nb/SNR can be expressed with time domain noise
power
1
N

b
SNR
EjXkj
2
s
2
wt
18
Because the estimated channel
^
h
LS
n of (14) includes the
noise power as well as channel information, we add the
noise power to both side of (17) then, we obtain
s
2
^
h
DFT
g , 2 EjXkj
2
s
2
wt
l
0
19
where
s
2
^
h
DFT
g s
2
h
g EjXkj
2
s
2
wt
, and l
0
is optimal
threshold for the average observations of channel samples.
However, in (14), we should set the threshold l for an
instantaneous observation j
^
h
LS
gj
2
not for the mean value
s
2
^
h
DFT
g. Since the available sample is just one sampled
value, the only unbiased point estimator is equal to the
observed one sampled data itself [12]. Therefore the
optimal threshold l for instantaneous sample j
^
h
LS
gj
2
is
same to l
0
; that is
l 2 EjXkj
2
s
2
wt
20
Without losses of generality, training signal X[k] is modu-
lated with average power one, and s
wt
2
can be replaced as
estimated noise power from (14). Then, the threshold is
expressed as
l 2 ^ s
2
wt
21
The nal frequency response of proposed estimation is
^
H
prop
k DFT
N
_
^
h
prop
n
_
22
Throughout these processing, we can adaptively detect the
channel taps against the variable SNR and channel
environments.
4 Simulation results
In this section, we investigate the performance of the pro-
posed channel estimation algorithm on multipath channels.
The MSE and bit-error-rate (BER) performances are exam-
ined. An OFDM system with symbols modulated by
16-QAM is used on multipath channels. The system band-
width is 20 MHz, which is divided into 128 tones with a
total symbol period of 8 ms, of which 1.6 ms constitutes
the CP, and the carrier frequency is 2.4 GHz. An OFDM
symbol thus consists of 160 samples, 32 of which are
included in the CP. The channel has L paths determined
by rms channel delay, and the amplitude of the each path
varies independently with an exponential power delay
prole [13]. Unit delay of channel is assumed to be the
same as OFDM sample period. Thus, there is no power
losses caused by non-sample spaced [9]. We assume chan-
nels are static over one OFDM frame, where the preamble is
1 OFDM symbol long and data are composed of 30 OFDM
symbols. A new channel is generated at each simulation run,
and the system performance is averaged over CIR realis-
ations. We simulate with three different channels shown
in Table 1. The rms delay of the worst channel has
150 ms that is consisted of 31 sample based on sampling
time in this simulation. As a result, the largest channel
length (L
max
) becomes 31. Fig. 3 conrms the MSE per-
formance of conventional DFT-based estimation with
Table 1 and the assumption that L is same as the
maximum channel delay tap of present channel (L
a
).
Usually, the small L
a
which is known at the receiver, indi-
cates the small MSE. However, note that if L is smaller
than maximum channel delay tap of present channel L
a
(e.g. L 17 and L
a
31), then MSE oor will be caused
by missing informative channel taps. As a result, to
prevent the MSE oor, it is clear that L should be set as
L
max
. At the same time, the MSE of channel estimation,
however, is xed as (31/128) (b/SNR), even if an actual
channel has L
a
smaller than L
max
, especially, in case of
L
a
7 or 17.
Fig. 4 shows the performance improvement of proposed
DFT-based channel estimation. Compared with convention-
al DFT-based channel estimation, proposed channel
estimation can reduce the MSE signicantly according as
the rms delay decreases. Especially, required SNR of pro-
posed estimation is 2.5 dB lower than the conventional
DFT-based estimation at rms 80 ms and 6.5 dB lower at
rms 30 ms. Fig. 5 shows that the average MSE through
Table 1: Channel parameters
Rms delay, ms Channel length,
L
a
(sample)
30 7
80 17
150 31
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
10
-5
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
E
b
/N
0
M
S
E
LS CE
DFT-based CE, L
a
=31, L=31
DFT-based CE, L
a
=17, L=17
DFT-based CE, L
a
=7 , L=7
DFT-based CE, L
a
=31, L=17
Fig. 3 Performance of conventional DFT-based channel
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
10
-5
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
E
b
/N
0
M
S
E
LS
Conventional DFT-based CE, rms=150
Proposed DFT-based CE, rms=150
Proposed DFT-based CE, rms=80
Proposed DFT-based CE, rms=30
Fig. 4 Comparing MSE performance with proposed algorithm
and conventional DFT-based estimation
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 2, April 2007 200
several exponential channels for different thresholds at
various SNR. From these results, it is obvious that the
threshold in (21) is optimal when l 2 s
2
wt
on every
SNR. Finally, the BER performance of the proposed
method is examined. As shown in Fig. 6, when we apply
the proposed algorithm, the required SNR is 1.5 dB
lower than the conventional DFT-based estimation with
rms 30 ms.
5 Conclusions
In this paper, an efcient DFT-based channel estimation for
OFDM on multipath environments has been presented. The
proposed estimation can improve the performance adap-
tively against various channel environments and does not
require any information about the channel statistics.
Moreover, it does not make MSE oor in any channels con-
trary to conventional DFT-based method. We derive the
optimal threshold to determine signicant channel taps.
The derived threshold is two times of the time domain
noise power. The noise power can be estimated by aver-
aging noise-only existing part. The simulation results
show that the proposed algorithm can signicantly reduce
the MSE and improve the BER performance as compared
with conventional schemes.
6 Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the Ministry of Information
and Communication (MIC), Republic of Korea, under the
Information Technology Research Center (ITRC) support
program supervised by the Information Technology
Assessment (IITA).
7 References
1 Edfors, O., Sandell, M., van de Beek, J.-J., Wilson, S.K., and
Borjesson, P.O.: OFDM channel estimation by singular value
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2 Noh, M., Lee, Y., and Park, H.: A low complexity LMMSE
channel estimation for OFDM, IEE Proc. Commun., 2006, 153, (5),
pp. 645650
3 Zhao, Y., and Huang, A.: A novel channel estimation method for
OFDM mobile communication systems based on pilot signals and
transform-domain processing. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf.,
1998, vol. 46, pp. 931939
4 van de Beek, J.-J., Edfors, O., Sandell, M., Wilson, S.K., and
Borjesson, P.O.: On channel estimation in OFDM systems. IEEE
Vehicular Technology Conf., July 1995, vol. 2, pp. 815819
5 Edfors, O., Sandell, M., van de Beek, J.-J., Wilson, S.K., and
Borjesson, P.O.: Analysis of DFT-based channel estimators for
OFDM, Wirel. Pers. Commun., 2000, 12, (1), pp. 5570
6 Dowler, A., Doufexi, A., and Nix, A.: Performance evaluation of
channel estimation techniques for a mobile fourth generation wide
area OFDM system. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., September
2002, vol. 4, pp. 20362040
7 Minn, H., and Bhargava, V.K.: An investigation into time-domain
approach for OFDM channel estimation, IEEE Trans. Broadcast.,
2000, 64, (4), pp. 240248
8 Athaudage, C.R.N., and Jayalath, A.D.S.: Delay-spread estimation
using cyclic-prex in wireless OFDM systems, IEE Proc.
Commun., 2004, 151, pp. 559566
9 Yang, B., Cao, Z., and Letaief, K.B.: Analysis of low-complexity
windowed DFT-based MMSE channel estimation for OFDM
systems, IEEE Trans. Commun., 2001, 49, pp. 19771987
10 Yeh, C.S., and Lin, Y.: Channel estimation using pilot tones in
OFDM systems, IEEE Trans. Broadcast., 1999, 45, (4), pp. 400409
11 COST 207 TD(86)51-REV 3 (WG1), Proposal on channel
transferfunctions to be used in GSM tests late 1986, Standard, 1986
12 Kay, S.M.: Fundamentals of statistical signal processing: estimation
theory (Prentice-Hall, 1993)
13 Halford, S., Halfor, K., and Webster, M.: Evaluating the performance
of HRb proposals in the presence of multipath (Intersil Corporation,
2000), (doc.:IEEE802.11-00/282r2)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
E
b
/N
0
B
E
R
LS
Conventional DFT-based CE
Proposed method, rms=150
Proposed method, rms=80
Proposed method, rms=30
16QAM-theory
Fig. 6 Comparing BER performance with proposed algorithm
and conventional DFT-based estimation
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
10
-2
10
-1
5dB
10dB
15dB
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
10
-4
10
-3
20dB
25dB
30dB
2
/
wt

2
/
wt

a b
Fig. 5 Comparing MSE for different thresholds against SNR
a SNR from 5 to 15 dB
b SNR from 20 to 30 dB
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 2, April 2007 201
8 Appendix
In this Section, we derive the MSE of zero-substitution case
in (16). The individual MSE of kth subcarrier is derived as,
for 0 n N 21
MSE
zero
k E DFT
N
hn
^
h
zero
n
_ _

2
_ _
E DFT
N

L1
u0
a
u
dn u
_

L1
v0;v=g
a
v
dn v

L
max
1
n0;n=g
~ wn
_

2
_
_
23
where DFT
N
f
.
g represents the DFT. We rewrite (23) as
follows
MSE
zero
k E DFT
N
a
g
dn g
_ _

2
_ _
E

L
max
1
n0;n=g
~ wn exp j2p
kn
N
_ _

2
_
_
_
_
E a
g

2
_ _

L
max
1
n0;n=g

L
max
1
m0;m=g
E ~ wn ~ w

m exp j2p
kn m
N
_ _
s
2
h
g L
max
1 E ~ wn ~ w

n 24
where s
2
h
g Eja
g
j
2
represents the average power of gth
channel tap. By using the denition of the DFT and (24), the
MSE of zero-substitution case is derived as follows
MSE
zero
k s
2
h
g L
max
1

1
N

N1
k
1
0
E
Wk
1

Xk
1

_ _
exp j2p
k
1
n
N
_ _
_ _

1
N

N1
k
2
0
E
Wk
2

Xk
2

_ _
exp j2p
k
2
n
N
_ _
_ _

s
2
h
g
L
max
1
N
2
Ns
2
wf
E
1
Xk
1

2
_ _
s
2
h
g
L
max
1
N
b
SNR
25
Hence, we obtain the desired MSE equation.
IET Commun., Vol. 1, No. 2, April 2007 202