A tree-structured blind algorithm for joint parametric channel estimation and non-coherent data detection in an OFDM-CDMA wireless system with antenna arrays

A blind joint parametric channel estimation and noncoherent data detection algorithm is proposed for the downlink of an orthogonal-frequency-division- multiplexing code-division-multiple-access (OFDM-CDMA) system with multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna arrays. To reduce the computational complexity, we first develop a tree-structured algorithm to estimate high dimensional parameters predominantly describing the involved multipath channels by employing several stages of low dimensional parameter estimation algorithms. In the tree structure, to exploit the space-time distribution of the receive multipath signals, spatial beamformers and spectral filters are adopted for clusteredmultipath grouping and path isolation. In conjunction with the multiple access interference (MAI) suppression techniques, the proposed tree architecture algorithm jointly estimates the direction of arrivals, propagation delays, carrier frequency offsets and fading amplitudes of the downlink wireless channels in a MIMO OFDM-CDMA system. With the outputs of the tree architecture, the signals of interest can then be naturally detected with a path-wise maximum ratio combining scheme.