Channel Tracking Using Particle Filtering in Unresolvable Multipath Environments

We propose a new timing error detector for timing tracking loops inside the Rake receiver in spread spectrum systems. Based on a particle filter, this timing error detector jointly tracks the delays of each path of the frequency-selective channels. Instead of using a conventional channel estimator, we have introduced a joint time delay and channel estimator with almost no additional computational complexity. The proposed scheme avoids the drawback of the classical early-late gate detector which is not able to separate closely spaced paths. Simulation results show that the proposed detectors outperform the conventional early-late gate detector in indoor scenarios.