Blind channel estimation in multi-rate CDMA systems

Multi-rate CDMA is a potentially attractive multiple access method for future broad-band multimedia wireless networks that must support integrated voice/data traffic. The primary impairment for such multi-rate systems is the multipath nature of radio channels that results in intra-user inter-chip interference (ICI) and multi-user interference (MUI) between different users’ symbols. Explicit knowledge of the channel is typically needed for high performance detectors (such as coherent demodulation). In this work, we propose a subspace method for channel estimation in multi-rate CDMA systems. A unified signal model that applies to three multi-rate CDMA schemes proposed in the literature is developed. The computational complexity for multi-rate scenarios is large and variable—accordingly, a modified approach is devised that offers performance/complexity trade-offs. Performance analysis is conducted based on a close-form expression for the mean square error of the estimator, supported by simulation results that investigate the effectiveness of our method.