An adaptive channel estimator in pilot channel based DS-CDMA systems

The performance of a coherent rake receiver of DS-CDMA systems is significantly affected by the accuracy of channel estimation. The performance of the channel estimator can be improved by employing a channel estimation filter (CEF) whose impulse response is adjusted according to the channel condition. In this paper, we consider the analytic design of an adaptive channel estimator for DS-CDMA systems with a pilot channel. The proposed channel estimator estimates the channel condition including the maximum Doppler frequency, which can be performed without having exact a priori information on the operating condition. The estimated channel condition adjusts the impulse response of the CEF. Numerical results show that the use of the proposed channel estimator can provide BER performance quite robust to a wide range of channel condition.