International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol: 10 No: 05 15 

An Adaptive LMS Channel Estimation Method for

LTE SC-FDMA Systems
Md. Masud Rana, Jinsang Kim, and Won-Kyung Cho
Department of Electronics and Radio Engineering
Kyung Hee University
Yongin Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea
Email: mamaraece28@yahoo.com

Abstract— 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) long term
evolution (LTE) uses single carrier-frequency division multiple
access (SC-FDMA) in uplink transmission and orthogonal
frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) scheme for the
downlink. One of the most important challenges for a transceiver
design is channel estimation (CE) and equalization. In this paper, a
training based least mean square (LMS) CE method is investigated
for a LTE SC-FDMA system. This method can avoid the ill-
conditioned least square (LS) problem. In addition, this CE
method uses adaptive estimator which is able to update parameters
of the estimator continuously. Simulation results show that the
LMS CE technique with 500 Hz Doppler frequency has around 3
dB better performances compared with 1.5k Hz Doppler
frequency.
Keywords— Channel estimation, least square, LMS, SC-FDMA.
I. INTRODUCTION
The wireless evolution has been stimulated by an explosive
growing demand for a wide variety of high quality of services in
voice, video, and data. This rigorous demand has made an
impact on current and future wireless applications, such as
digital audio/video broadcasting, wireless local area networks
(WLANs), worldwide interoperability for microwave access
(WiMAX), wireless fidelity (WiFi), cognitive radio (CR), and
3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) long term evolution
(LTE) [1], [2]. LTE uses uses single carrier-frequency division
multiple access (SC-FDMA) in uplink transmission and
orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)
scheme for the downlink [1]. A highly efficient way to cope
with the frequency selectivity of wideband channel is OFDMA.
OFDMA is an effective technique for combating multipath
fading and for high bit rate transmission over mobile wireless
channels. Channel estimation (CE) has been successfully used to
improve the performance of the LTE OFDMA systems. It can
be employed for the purpose of detecting received signal,
improve signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), channel equalization,
cochannel interference (CCI) rejection, and improved the system
performance [3-5]. The training CE algorithm requires probe
sequences; the receiver can use this probe sequence to
reconstruct the transmitted waveform [6-8]. Training symbols
can be placed either at the beginning of each burst as a preamble
or regularly through the burst. Training sequences are
transmitted at certain positions of the SC-FDMA frequency time
pattern, in its place of data.
Several CE techniques have been proposed for LTE SC-
FDMA systems. In [3], the least square (LS) CE has been
proposed to minimize the squared differences between the
received and estimated signal. The LS algorithm, which is
independent of the channel model, is commonly used in
equalization and filtering applications. But the statistics of
channels in real world change over time. Another limitation that
is encountered in the straight application of the LS estimator is
that the inversion of the large dimensional square matrix turns
out to be ill-conditioned. Two-dimensional based on Wiener
filtering pilot symbol aided CE has been proposed [4]. Although
it exhibits the best performance among the existing linear
algorithms in literature, it requires accurate knowledge of
second order channel statistics, which is not always feasible at a
mobile receiver. This estimator gives almost the same result as
1D estimator, but it requires higher complexity. To further
improve the accuracy of the estimator, Wiener filtering based
iterative CE has been investigated [4], [7]. However, this
scheme also requires high complexity and knowledge of channel
correlations [9-12].
Adaptive CE has been, and still is, an area of active research
topics, playing imperative roles in an ever growing number of
applications such as wireless communications where the channel
is rapidly time-varying. Signal processing techniques that use
recursively estimated, time varying models are normally called
adaptive. Different adaptive CE algorithms have been proposed
over the years for the purpose of updating the channel
coefficient. The least mean square (LMS) method, its
normalized version (NLMS), the affine projection algorithm
(APA), as well as the recursive least square (RLS) method are
well known examples of such CE algorithms. The well known
LMS/NLMS CE algorithms are attractive from a computational
complexity point of view but their convergence behavior for
highly correlated input signals is poor. The RLS CE method
resolves this trouble, but at the expense of increased complexity.
A very large number of fast RLS CE methods have been
developed over the years, but regrettably, it seems that the better
a fast RLS CE method is in terms of computational efficiency
and numerical stability [13-15]. In addition, the RLS algorithm
has the recursive inversion of an estimate of the autocorrelation
matrix of the input signal as its cornerstone, problems arise, if
the autocorrelation matrix is rank deficient.
 International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol: 10 No: 05 16 
 
In this paper, we investigate the adaptive LMS CE method At the transmitter, a baseband multiple phase shift keying
in the LTE SC-FDMA systems. This CE method uses adaptive modulator takes binary sequence and produces the signaling
estimator which is able to update parameters of the estimator waveforms
continuously, so that knowledge of channel and noise statistics
2E
are not required. This LMS CE algorithm requires knowledge of mi (t) = cos(ωt + αi ), 0 < t < T
the received signal only. This can be done in a digital T
communication system by periodically transmitting a training
sequence that is known to the receiver. Simulation results show 2E
= [cos(αi ) cos(ωt) - sin(α i ) sin(ωt)]
that the LMS CE scheme with 500 Hz Doppler frequency has 3 T
dB better performances compared with 1.5 kHz Doppler
frequency.
= a i b(t) + ci d(t), (1)
We use the following notations throughout this paper: bold where T is the symbol duration, E is the energy of mi (t),
face lower letter is used to represent vector. Superscripts x* and
2π i
xT denote the conjugate and conjugate transpose of the complex ω = 2πf, f is the carrier frquency, phase anagle α = ,M
vector x respectively. M
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: section II
is the alphabate size, α i = E cos α i inphase basis,
describes LTE SC-FDMA systems model. The adaptive LMS
CE method is presented in section III, and its performance is 2
analyzed in section IV. Finally, conclusions are made in section b(t) = cos(ωt), ci = E sinαi , and quadrature basis,
V. T
2
II. LTE SC-FDMA SYSTEMS MODEL d(t) = - cos(ωt). CE is often achieved by multiplexing
T
In this section, we briefly explain SC-FDMA system model, known symbols, so called, pilot symbols into data sequences [1].
fading channel statistics, and received signal model. These modulated symbols and pilots perform N-point discrete
Fourier transform (DFT) to produce a frequency domain
A. Baseband system model representation:
-j2π mt
1 N-1
A baseband block diagram for the communications system si (t) = ∑
N t=0
m i (t) e N
, (2)
under investigation is shown in Fig. 1.
where j is the imaginary unit. It then maps each of the N-point
DFT outputs to one of the orthogonal sub-carriers mapping that
can be transmitted. There are two principal sub-carrier mapping
modes: localized mode, and distribution mode. In distributed sub-
carrier mode, the outputs are allocated equally spaced sub-carrier,
with zeros occupying the unused sub-carrier in between. While in
localized sub-carrier mode, the outputs are confined to a
continuous spectrum of sub-carrier. Interleaved sub-carrier
mapping mode of FDMA (IFDMA) is another special sub-carrier
mapping mode [16], [17]. The difference between DFDMA and
IFDMA is that the outputs of IFDMA are allocated over the
entire bandwidth, whereas the DFDMAs outputs are allocated
every several subcarriers [18], [19].
Finally, the inverse DFT (IDFT) module output is followed
by a cyclic prefix (CP) insertion that completes the digital stage
of the signal flow. The CP is used to eliminate ISI and preserve
the orthogonality of the tones. Assume that the channel length of
CP is larger than the channel delay spread [20].

B. Channel model
Fig. 1.Block diagram of a LTE SC-FDMA system.
Channel model is a mathematical representation of the
transfer characteristics of the physical medium. These models are
 International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol: 10 No: 05
formulated by observing the characteristics of the received signal.
According to the documents from 3GPP, a radio wave
propagation can be described by multipaths which arise from
reflection and scattering [20]. The received signal at the mobile
terminal is a superposition of all paths. If there are L distinct
paths from transmitter to the receiver, the impulse response of the
multipath fading channel can be represented as [20]:
L
ω(m,τ) = ∑ ω j (m)δ[m - τ j (m)], (3)
j=1
where ω j (m) and τ j (m) are attenuations and delays for each
path at time instant m, and δ(.) is the Dirac delta function. The
fading process for the mobile radio channel is given by
ω(v) = ω j 1- (v/f d ) , (4)
where Doppler frquency f d = s/λ, s is the speed of the mobile,
and λ is the wavelength of the transmitted carrier. In order to do
simulations as close to the reality as possible, it is essential to
have a good channel model. This model is used to describe the
fast variations of the received signal strength due to changes in
phases when a mobile terminal moves. In case of wideband
modeling, each path of the impulse response can be modeled as
Rayleigh distributed with uniform phase except line of sight
(LOS) component cases [20].
C. Received signal model
The transmitted symbols propagating through the radio
channel can be modeled as a circular convolution between the
CIR and the transmitted data block i.e., [s(m)*ω (m,τ )] . Since,
the channel coefficient is usually unknown to the receiver, it
needs to be efficiently estimated. The impulse response of
multipath fading channel can be represented by a tap-delayed line
filter with time varying coefficients and symbol-rate spaced
coefficients.
Fig. 2. L-tapped delay line filter of a fading channel.
At the receiver, the opposite set of the operation is performed.
After synchronization, CP samples are discarded and the
remaining samples are processed by the DFT to retrieve the
complex constellation symbols transmitted over the orthogonal
17 
sub-channels. The received signals are de-mapped and
equalizer is used to compensate for the radio channel frequency
selectivity. After IDFT operation, these received signals are
demodulated and soft or hard values of the corresponding bits
are passed to the decoder. The decoder analyzes the structure
of received bit pattern and tries to reconstruct the original
signal.
III. ADAPTIVE LMS CE METHOD
CE is the process of characterizing the effect of the physical
medium on the input sequence. The aim of most CE algorithms
is to minimize the mean square error (MSE), while utilizing as
little computational resources as possible in the estimation
process [2], [4]. CE algorithms permit the receiver to estimated
the impulse response of the channel and clarify the behavior of
the channel. This information of the channel’s behavior is well
utilized in modern mobile radio communications. One of the
most important benefits of CE is that it allows the
implementation of coherent demodulation. Coherent
demodulation requires the knowledge the phase of the signal.
This can be accomplished by using CE techniques. Once a
model has been established, its parameters need to be estimated
in order to minimize the error as the channel changes. If the
receiver has a priori knowledge of the information being sent
over the channel, it can utilize this knowledge to obtain an
accurate estimate of the impulse response of the channel.
An adaptive algorithm is a process that changes its
parameters as it gain more information of its possibly changing
environment. Among numerous iterative techniques that exist in
the open literature, the popular category of approaches which
are obtain from the minimization of the MSE between the output
of the filter and desired signal to perform CE as shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Adaptive CE method.
The signal s(m) is transmitted via a time-varying channel
w(m), and corrupted by an additive noise estimated by using any
kind of CE method. The main aim of most CE algorithms is to
minimize the MSE i.e., between the received signal and its
 International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol: 10 No: 05 18 
 
estimate. In the Fig 3, we have unknown multipath fading recursive equation may be used to update w est (m) :
channel, that has to be estimated with an adaptive filter whose
weight are updated based on some criterion so that coefficients w est (m +1) = w est (m) - 1/2 ηΔj(m)
of adaptive filter should be as close as possible to the unknown
channel. The output from the channel can be expressed as: = w est (m) + ηs(m)[r* (m) - w T est (m)sT (m)]
L-1
= w est (m) + ηs(m)e* (m), (11)
r(m) = ∑ w(m,l) s(m - l) + z(m),
l=0
(5)
where w est (m+1) denotes the weight vector to be computed at
where s(m - l) is the complex symbol drawn from a constellation iteration (m + 1) and η is the LMS step size which is related to
s of the lth paths at time m-l, L is the channel length, z(m) is the
the rate of convergence. The smaller step size means that a
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) with zero mean and
2
longer reference or training sequence is needed, which would
variance σ . The above equation can be rewritten as vector reduce the payload and hence, the bandwidth available for
notation [1]: *
transmitting data. The term [ ηs(m)e (m) ] represents the
r (m) = w (m)s(m) + z (m),
T
(6) correction factor or adjustment that is applied to the current
T
where s = (s 0 , s1 ,........,s L-1 ) , r = (r0 , r1 ,........,rL-1 )T , estimate of the tap-weight vector. The iterative procedure is
started with an initial guess w est (0) . The detail step of this CE
w = (w 0 , w 1 ,........,w L-1 )T , and z = (z 0 , z1 ,........,w L-1 )T .
algorithm is shown in Fig. 4.
The output of the adaptive filter is
y ( m) = w T est ( m)s( m), (7)
where w est (m) is the estimated channel coefficients at time m.
The priori estimated error signal needed to update the weights of
the adaptive filter is
e(m) = r (m) - y (m)
= wT (m)s(m) + z (m) − w T est (m)s (m) (8)
This error signal is used by the CE to adaptively adjust the
weight vector so that the MSE is minimized. Now the cost
*
function j(m) = E[e(m)e (m)] for the adaptive filter
structure is
j(m) = E[r T ( m)r ( m)] - E[s]r * w T est (m) - r (m)w T est (m)
E[s T ] − w est ( m) w T est ( m) E[sT ( m)s( m)]
= σ r 2 − c( m) w T est (m) - w T est (m)cT ( m)
+ D( m) w T est ( m) w est ( m), (9)
where σr 2
is the variance of the received signal,
c(m) = E[sT (m)r (m)] is the cross-correlation vector
between the tap input vector s(m) and the received signal r(m),
T
and D(m) = E[s(m)s (m)] is the correlation matrix of the
tap input vector s(m). Now taking the gradient vector with
respect to w est (m) :
Δj(m) = -2c(m) + 2D(m) w T est (m)
= - 2s(m)r* (m) + 2s(m)sT (m)wT est (m). (10)
According to the method of steepest descent, if w est (m) is the
tap-weight vector at the mth iteration then the following Fig. 4. Flow chart of the LMS CE method [13].
 International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol: 10 No: 05 19 
 
IV. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS The same behavior can be observed for BER performance in
Fig. 6.
A. Computational complexity
1
10
The complexity of CE is of crucial importance especially for
time varying wireless communication channels, where it has to For Doppler frequency 500Hz
be performed periodically or even continuously. Table I
0 For Doppler frequency 1500Hz
summarizes the computational complexity of the LMS CE 10
method, where L is the channel length, and real number
indicates scalar operation.
-1
TABLE I 10
COMPLEXITY PER ITERATION
Operation Complexity

MSE
Multiplication 7L + 1
-2
Addition 9L - 3 10

B. Simulation results -3
10
The error performance of the aforementioned iterative
estimation algorithm is explored by performing extensive
computer simulations. All simulation parameters of the LTE -4
10
SC-FDMA system in Doppler spread environments are 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
summarized in Table II. SNR [dB]

Table II Fig. 5. MSE performance comparisons of the LMS CE method.

THE SYSTEMS PARAMETERS FOR SIMULATION
Systems parameters Assumptions 1
10
System bandwidth 5 MHz
Sampling frequency 7.68 MHz For Doppler frequency 500Hz
Sub-carrier spacing 9.765 kHz 0 For Doppler frequency 1500Hz
Modulation data type BPSK 10
FFT size 16
Sub-carrier mapping scheme IFDMA
IFFT size 512 -1
10
Data block size 32
Cyclic prefix 4µs
BER

Channel Rayleigh fading -2

LMS gain 0.4 10
Equalization ZF
Doppler frequency 100, and 1.5 kHz
-3
10
Fig. 5 shows the MSE versus SNR for the LMS CE method
with different Doppler frequencies. We can see that the LMS
CE method with 500 Hz Doppler frequency has 3 dB better
performances compared with 1500 Hz Doppler frequency. This -4
10
CE method uses adaptive estimator which is able to update 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
parameters of the estimator continuously, so that knowledge of SNR [dB]
channel and noise statistics are not required. Such approach can
Fig. 6. BER performance comparisons of the LMS CE method.
guarantee the convergence towards the true channel coefficient.
 International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol: 10 No: 05
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, training based LMS CE scheme is investigate
for a LTE SC-FDMA system that can avoid the ill-conditioned
least square (LS) problem. This CE scheme uses adaptive
estimator which is able to update parameters of the estimator
continuously, so that knowledge of channel and noise statistics
are not required. The computational complexities, MSE and
BER performance, are analyzed and compared with the different
Doppler frequencies. From computer simulations, we can come
to the conclusion that the LMS CE method with 500 Hz Doppler
frequency has 3 dB better performances compared with 1.5 kHz
Doppler frequency.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by the Basic Science Research
Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea
(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technology (20100017118).
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