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Impulse Symbol Based Channel Estimation in OFDM Systems

Conference Paper · September 2006

DOI: 10.1109/PIMRC.2006.254364 · Source: DBLP

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The 17th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC’06)
IMPULSE SYMBOL BASED CHANNEL ESTIMATION IN OFDM SYSTEMS
Namseok Chang and Joonhyuk Kang
Information and Communications University
103-6, Munji-dong, Yuseong-gu
Daejeon, 705-732, Korea
{seneic, jhkang}@icu.ac.kr
A BSTRACT
In real wireless environments, perfect channel state informa-
tion is not available at the receiver. Thus, to obtain an accu-
rate channel information, channel estimation is an important
issue in the wireless communication systems. In general, pilot
symbols are used to obtain channel information. In this paper,
we propose a channel estimation technique exploiting impulse
symbol for OFDM systems. Our proposed technique estimates
the channel impulse response directly at the receiver in time-
frequency-selective fading channels and yields better bit error
rate (BER) performance than existing channel estimation meth-
ods.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a well-
known technology, which is robust to inter-symbol interfer-
ence (ISI) in frequency-selective channel [1]. In other words, a
frequency-selective channel can be divided into multiple sub-
channels that are almost frequency flat and orthogonal to each
other. Moreover, the effect of ISI can be removed by inserting a
guard interval. However, in time-frequency-selective channels,
the impulse response changes over time. Thus, the orthogonal-
ity of subcarriers is invalid and inter-carrier interference (ICI)
occurs [2]. Time-frequency-selective channel in OFDM sys-
tems can be represented as a matrix form to consider the time-
frequency-selectivity [3]. The channel matrix in the time do-
main is transformed to the matrix in the frequency domain by
using the FFT matrix. After the inversion of the channel matrix
in the frequency domain is multiplied with the received signal
vector, the effects of ISI and ICI can be mitigated [3], [4].
The perfect channel state information (CSI) is required at the
receiver to mitigate ISI and ICI. In the practical OFDM sys-
tems, however, the perfect CSI is not generally available at the
receiver, so that CSI should be estimated. The existing channel
estimation scheme is to use the pilot symbol in the frequency
domain. In this case, there are two pilot patterns [3]. One pat-
tern is that the pilot symbols are allocated in all subcarriers at
a given time slot, while the other is that the pilot symbols are
inserted to certain subcarriers at every tome slot. The time slot
with pilot symbols is followed by several data symbol blocks.
CSI of the data symbol block is obtained by interpolation be-
tween two pilot symbol blocks. Therefore, CSI becomes inac-
curate in the channel with large Doppler spread, because the
channel estimation is not performed at every OFDM symbol
block. In addition, the time slot with the pilot symbols also
needs the guard interval to avoid ISI. Thus, using the pilot sym-
bols results in the squandering of the data rate. When the pilot
1-4244-0330-8/06/$20.00
2006
c IEEE
symbols exist in certain subcarriers, the OFDM system requires
interpolation in the frequency domain to obtain CSI for all sub-
carriers, and the appropriate pilot symbol spacing should be
determined [5]. In the channel with large delay spread, CSI
is less accurate than that of the OFDM system where the pilot
symbols are allocated in all subcarrier. However, using the pi-
lot symbols in certain subccariers is robust to the effect of the
Doppler spread, because the channel information is updated at
every time slot.
In this paper, we propose the channel estimation technique
that uses the impulse symbol for OFDM systems. Our pro-
posed technique has advantages of both existing pilot-based
channel estimation schemes: the robustness to time-selectivity
and frequency-selectivity. Moreover, the impulse response is
obtained directly at the receiver by using the impulse symbol in
the time domain. On the other hand, the existing channel esti-
mation schemes require the transformation from the frequency
domain to the time domain, because they use the known signals
in the frequency domain.
The rest parts of this paper are organized as follows. In sec-
tion II, OFDM system models are described. Then we investi-
gate existing channel estimation scheme and propose our chan-
nel estimation technique in section III. Section IV includes the
computer simulation results. Finally, we conclude and summa-
rize the advantage of our technique in section V.
Notation: A bold face letter denotes a vector or a matrix;
(·)∗ is conjugate; (·)T is transpose; (·)H is conjugate transpose;
(·)+ denotes pseudo-inverse.
II. OFDM S YSTEM M ODELING
OFDM systems can be classified into two types: cyclic prefix
OFDM (CP-OFDM) and zero padded OFDM (ZP-OFDM) [6].
In this section, we describe both OFDM systems and model
them mathematically.
A. CP-OFDM
Fig. 1 illustrates the block diagram of the CP-OFDM sys-
tem. The output of serial to parallel converter is represented by
T
X = [X(0) X(1) · · · X(k) · · · X(N − 1)] . In OFDM sys-
tem, a fast Fourier transform (FFT) and an inverse fast Fourier
transform (IFFT) are defined by [3], [4], [7].
N −1
1

X(k) = √ x(n)e−j2πnk/N (1)
N n=0
N −1
1

x(n) = √ X(k)ej2πnk/N (2)
N k=0
The 17th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC’06)

where h(n, l) is the complex channel coefficient at sampling

X (k ) Serial X x x′ Parallel
h(n, l ) time n and delay l. The relationship between x and y is given
to IFFT Add CP to
Parallel Serial x ( n) by
y = Hx + z (9)
Y (k ) Parallel Y y y′ Serial y ( n) where H is the channel matrix in the time domain; z =
to
Serial
FFT
Remove
CP
to
Parallel
⊕ [z(0) z(1) · · · z(n) · · · z(N − 1)]T . The channel matrix
z ( n)
H can be expressed to
 
h0,0 h0,N −1 ··· h0,1
Figure 1: Block diagram of CP-OFDM system 
 h1,1 h1,0 ··· h1,2 
x x′
H= .. .. .. ..  (10)
X (k ) Serial
to
X
IFFT
Zero
Parallel
to
h(n, l )  . . . . 
Padding
Parallel Serial x ( n) hN −1,N −1 hN −1,N −2 ··· hN −1,0

y ( n)
where hn,l is equal to h(n, l). H is converted in the frequency
Y (k ) Parallel Y y Overlap y′ Serial
to FFT and to ⊕ domain by using the N -point FFT matrix FN . The element at
Serial Add Parallel
z ( n) ith row and jth column is
1 j2π(i−1)(j−1)
Fij = √ e− N (11)
Figure 2: Block diagram of ZP-OFDM system N
The system model from X to Y can be represented in the fre-
From (2), the frequency symbols, X are transformed to x = quency domain
[x(0) x(1) · · · x(n) · · · x(N − 1)]T .
To avoid interference between adjacent OFDM symbol Y = FN HFH
N X + Z = GX + Z (12)
blocks, the length of CP, G should be longer than the length
where G = FN HFH
N is the channel matrix in the frequency
of the channel impulse response. In CP-OFDM system, the
domain; Z is FFT of z.
last G − 1 elements are appended ahead of x as following
By multiplying the matrix inversion of G with Y, the mit-
x = [x(N − G + 1) · · · x(N − 2) x(N − 1) xT ]T (3) igation of ISI and ICI is achieved. In this case, there are two
methods: the zero-forcing (ZF) and minimum mean squared
Under the assumption that the channel impulse response is con- error (MMSE) linear detection. The mathematical representa-
stant and its length is L, the receive signal y(n) is given by tions of them are given by
L−1


y(n) = x(n) ∗ h(n) + z(n) = h(l)x(n − l) + z(n) (4) ZF : X̃ = [G]+ Y (13)
 −1
l=0 σ2
MMSE : X̃ = GH G + Z 2 IN GH Y (14)
where ∗ denotes the linear convolution; z(n) is the AWGN. σX
The serial to parallel converter outputs y = [y(N − G +
where σZ 2
and σX2
are the noise power and the signal power,
1) · · · y(N − 2) y(N − 1) y(0) y(1) · · · y(N − 1)]T . Af-
respectively; IN is the N × N identity matrix.
ter removing the CP from y , y(n) can be represented by the
circular convolution between x(n) and h(n). B. ZP-OFDM
y(n) = x(n)
h(n) + z(n), n = 0, · · · , N − 1 (5) Fig. 2 depicts the block diagram of the ZP-OFDM system. The
structure of ZP-OFDM is similar to that of CP-OFDM. How-
where
denotes the circular convolution. The vec-
ever, the methods inserting the guard interval are different be-
tor y is transformed to the vector Y where y = tween two systems. In ZP-OFDM system, G − 1 null symbols
[y(0) y(1) · · · y(n) · · · y(N − 1)]T ; Y = are appended behind x,
[Y (0) Y (1) · · · Y (k) · · · Y (N − 1)]T . For the frequency
domain representation, (5) can be expressed to x = [xT 0G−1 ]T (15)
Y (k) = X(k)H(k) + Z(k), k = 0, · · · , N − 1 (6) where 0G−1 represents the 1×(G−1) null vector. The received
where H(k) is the FFT of h(n) and Z(k) is the FFT of z(n). signal is y = [y(0) y(1) · · · y(N − 1) y(N ) · · · y(N +
The equalization is performed by dividing in the frequency do- G − 2)]T . In ZP-OFDM, the guard interval is not removed. In
main addition, the vector y is obtained by overlap and add method.

X̃(k) = Y (k)/H(k), k = 0, · · · , N − 1 (7) y = [y(0) y(1) · · · y(N − 1)]T

+ [y(N ) · · · y(N + G − 2) 0N −G+1 ]T (16)
If the channel impulse response changes over time, then
L−1 If the channel impulse response is static over the OFDM trans-


y(n) = h(n, l)x(n − l) + z(n) (8) mission block, then (5) is satisfied. In this case, ZP-OFDM is
l=0
exactly the same as CP-OFDM.
The 17th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC’06)

However, in the time varying channel, the channel matrix H

is modified into Channel Frequency Response
  2
h0,0 hN,N −1 ··· hN,1 1.5

Magnitude
 h1,1 h1,0 · · · hN +1,2 
  1
H= .. .. .. ..  (17)
 . . . .  0.5
hN −1,N −1 hN −1,N −2 ··· hN −1,0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Subcarrier
Compared with CP-OFDM, the upper triangular terms are dif- Channel Impulse Response
ferent. From H, the channel matrix G is obtained by (12) and All data
its inversion used to mitigate ISI and ICI. 0.6 Selected data

Magnitude
0.4
III. OFDM C HANNEL E STIMATION 0.2

A. Pilot Symbols in Time Slots 0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Sampling Index
In this scheme, the pilot symbols are allocated in all subcarri-
ers. After the received vector Y is divided by the pilot symbols
for all subcarriers, the obtained channel frequency response is Figure 3: Channel frequency response and channel impulse re-
sponse estimated by using the pilot symbols in time slots
g(k) = Y (k)/Xpilot (k), k = 0, · · · , N − 1 (18)

The channel frequency response is transformed to the time do- Channel Frequency Response
3
main sequence, h(n) = IFFT[g(k)]. Next, h(n) becomes the Magnitude
Interpolated Data
Estimated Data
channel impulse response composed of the components with 2
relatively high power. Moreover, the receiver discards the com-
1
ponents whose delay is more than the maximum delay. Fig. 3
shows the OFDM channel with pilot symbols in time slots. 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
It is assumed that there are m − 1 data symbol blocks be- Subcarrier
Channel Impulse Response
tween two pilot symbol blocks. The channel impulse response 0.6
hi = [hi (0) hi (1) · · · hi (l) · · · hi (L − 1)] is obtained at All data
Magnitude

Selected Data
i-th OFDM symbol block. The channel impulse response at 0.4

the next pilot symbol blocks is hi+m . The delay component 0.2
h(n, l) in m − 1 data symbol blocks is acquired by interpola-
tion between hi (l) and hi+m (l). As a result, the channel matrix 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
H is constructed by the above value and the channel matrix G Sampling Index

is obtained. Finally, we can mitigate ISI and ICI by using ZF

or MMSE linear detection scheme. The above process is also Figure 4: Channel frequency response and channel impulse re-
performed in the following channel estimation schemes. sponse estimated by using the pilot symbols in subcarriers
B. Pilot Symbols in Subcarriers
Transmitted Sequence
Unlike the previous scheme, the pilot symbols occupy certain 6
OFDM Symbol Part
subcarriers at every time slot. To estimate the channel fre- Impulse Symbol Part
Magnitude

4
quency response, the received signal vector is divided by the
pilot symbols like (18). However, the interpolation technique is 2
required for all subcarriers, because the channel coefficients at
0
subcarriers without the pilot symbol are not acquired directly. 0 20 40 60 80
Except applying interpolation, the channel estimation process Sampling Index
Received Sequence
is the same as the previous scheme. Fig. 4 depicts the estimated 3
OFDM Symbol Part
OFDM channel with pilot symbols in subcarriers. Impulse Symbol Part
Magnitude

C. Impulse Symbol in Time Domain 1

In ZP-OFDM system, the tail null symbols are attached to the
0
output sequence after IFFT operation. In this scheme, The 0 20 40 60 80
additional block is appended to estimate CSI. The additional Sampling Index

block is composed of one impulse symbol known at the re-

ceiver and several null symbols. Fig. 5 represents the trans- Figure 5: Transmitted sequence and received sequence when
mitted sequence and the received sequence. The channel im- using the impulse symbol in the time domain
pulse response is acquired from the impulse symbol part, and
The 17th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC’06)

0
Table 1: Systems Environment. 10

Modulation QPSK
FFT/IFFT Size 64 −1
10
Guard Interval 16
System Bandwidth 500kHz

BER
−2
10

the detection of data symbols is performed by using the OFDM

ZP Perfect CSI
symbol part. CP Perfect CSI
−3
The impulse symbol is known and has more power than 10 ZP Training Block
CP Training Block
data symbol. In this scheme, the receiver collects the signals ZP Pilot Symbol
CP Pilot Symbol
with greater magnitude than a given threshold in the time do- ZP Impulse
−4
main and uses them the channel impulse response. However, 10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Eb/N0 [dB]
if the signal with zero channel gain in the impulse response
is corrupted by AWGN and has larger magnitude than a given
threshold, it is considered as one component of the channel im- Figure 6: BER versus SNR/bit of OFDM systems in the chan-
pulse response. To avoid this phenomenon, the impulse symbol nel with ∆fD = 0.05 and τrms = 2µs
should have more power than data symbol. Consequently, the 0
10
energy per bit should be modified to ZP Training Block
CP Training Block
N · Edata + Eimpulse ZP Pilot Symbol
Eb = (19) −1
10 CP Pilot Symbol
M · (N + 1) ZP Impulse

where N is the FFT size and M is the modulation depth. Edata −2

10
and Eimpulse are the energy of data symbol and the energy of
MSE

impulse symbol, respectively. −3

10

IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS

−4
10
We evaluate the performance of our proposed system by using
computer simulations. The simulation environment is summa-
rized in Table 1. The 2-ray Rayleigh fading channel is used 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Eb/N0 [dB]
and the power of each delay component is equal. Channels are
generated by using Jakes’ simulator in [8].
We fix the percentage that the data symbols occupy in one Figure 7: MSE versus SNR/bit of OFDM systems in the chan-
OFDM symbol block and compare three channel estimation nel with ∆fD = 0.05 and τrms = 2µs
methods. When using the pilot symbols in time slots, each pilot
symbol block is followed by every 5 data symbol block. In the
Throughout the simulations, training block means the pilot
OFDM system with the pilot symbols in subcarriers, there are
symbol block, and pilot symbol refers to the method using pilot
53 data symbols and 11 pilot symbols in one OFDM symbol
symbols in certain subcarriers. Fig. 6 illustrates BER curves in
duration. The OFDM symbol block of our proposed system
the channel with normalized doppler frequency ∆fD = 0.05
includes the channel estimation part with length 17.
and RMS delay spread τrms = 2µs. The OFDM system with
The channel estimation with pilot symbols is simulated for
impulse symbol outperforms the OFDM system using pilot
both CP-OFDM and ZP-OFDM. However, the channel estima-
symbols and its BER curve is close to the CP-OFDM system
tion using the impulse symbol is simulated for only ZP-OFDM,
with perfect CSI. Fig. 7 illustrates the MSE of OFDM sys-
because the channel impulse response is affected by ISI of data
tems. Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 show BER and MSE of OFDM sys-
symbols in CP-OFDM. The OFDM system with perfect CSI is
tem, respectively. In this case, normalized doppler frequency
the reference of performance comparison and is simulated for
∆fD is 0.1. The system with the impulse symbol has better
CP-OFDM and ZP-OFDM.
BER performance and estimates CSI with less error. Fig. 10
We compare the performance of each system by using bit
and Fig. 11 depict BER and MSE of OFDM system, respec-
error rate (BER) and mean squared error (MSE).
tively, in the channel with ∆fD = 0.05 and RMS delay spread
N −1 N −1
1

2 τrms = 10µs. The OFDM system with impulse symbol yields
MSE = 2 Ĝij − Gij (20) good performance even in the frequency-selective channel.
N i=0 j=0

where Gij is the element at ith row and jth column of the chan- V. C ONCLUSION
nel matrix G and Ĝij is the element of the estimated channel In real environments, the receiver cannot generally know per-
matrix. fect CSI. Thus, to accurately estimate CSI, we proposed the
The 17th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC’06)

0 0
10 10

−1 −1
10 10
BER

BER
−2 −2
10 10

ZP Perfect CSI ZP Perfect CSI

CP Perfect CSI CP Perfect CSI
−3 −3
10 ZP Training Block 10 ZP Training Block
CP Training Block CP Training Block
ZP Pilot Symbol ZP Pilot Symbol
CP Pilot Symbol CP Pilot Symbol
−4 ZP Impulse −4 ZP Impulse
10 10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Eb/N0 [dB] Eb/N0 [dB]

Figure 8: BER versus SNR/bit of OFDM systems in the chan- Figure 10: BER versus SNR/bit of OFDM systems in the chan-
nel with ∆fD = 0.1 and τrms = 2µs nel with ∆fD = 0.05 and τrms = 10µs
0 0
10 10
ZP Training Block ZP Training Block
CP Training Block CP Training Block
ZP Pilot Symbol ZP Pilot Symbol
−1 −1
10 CP Pilot Symbol 10 CP Pilot Symbol
ZP Impulse ZP Impulse

−2 −2
10 10
MSE

MSE

−3 −3
10 10

−4 −4
10 10

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Eb/N0 [dB] Eb/N0 [dB]

Figure 9: MSE versus SNR/bit of OFDM systems in the chan- Figure 11: MSE versus SNR/bit of OFDM systems in the chan-
nel with ∆fD = 0.1 and τrms = 2µs nel with ∆fD = 0.05 and τrms = 10µs

novel channel estimation method using the impulse symbol in
the time domain. The channel impulse response is obtained
directly in the time domain. On the other hand, the existing
pilot-based OFDM system needs IFFT operation to obtain the
channel impulse response. Moreover, our proposed technique
is more robust to the effect of Doppler spread and delay spread
than existing channel estimation schemes. However, we can ac-
quire more accurate CSI by using the impulse symbol as long
as the length of channel impulse response is moderate.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was supported by Samsung ICU Research Center.
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