Efficient channel estimation in DS-CDMA systems

The accuracy of channel estimation significantly affects the performance of coherent rake receiver in DS-CDMA systems. It is desirable for improved channel estimation to employ a channel estimation filter (CEF) whose bandwidth is adjustable to the channel condition. In this paper, we consider the use of moving average (MA) FIR filters as the CEF since it is simple to implement and can provide relatively good receiver performance. First, we optimize the tap size of the MA FIR CEF so as to minimize the mean squared error of the estimated channel impulse response. For practical applications, we propose a low-complexity adaptive channel estimator (ACE), where the tap size of the MA FIR CEF is adjusted based on the estimated channel condition by exploiting the con-elation characteristics of the received pilot signal. Numerical results show that the use of the proposed ACE can provide the receiver performance comparable to that of Wiener CEF without exact a priori information on the operating condition.