On Channel Estimation for OFDM/TDM Using MMSE-FDE in a Fast Fading Channel

MMSE-FDE can improve the transmission performance of OFDM combined with time division multiplexing (OFDM/TDM), but knowledge of the channel state information and the noise variance is required to compute the MMSE weight. In this paper, a performance evaluation of OFDM/TDM using MMSE-FDE with pilot-assisted channel estimation over a fast fading channel is presented. To improve the tracking ability against fast fading a robust pilot-assisted channel estimation is presented that uses time-domain filtering on a slot-by-slot basis and frequency-domain interpolation. We derive the mean square error (MSE) of the channel estimator and then discuss a tradeoff between improving the tracking ability against fading and the noise reduction. The achievable bit error rate (BER) performance is evaluated by computer simulation and compared with conventional OFDM. It is shown that the OFDM/TDM using MMSE-FDE achieves a lower BER and a better tracking ability against fast fading in comparison with conventional OFDM.