Joint MAP channel estimation and data detection for OFDM in presence of phase noise from free running and phase locked loop oscillator

Abstract This paper addresses a computationally compact and statistically optimal joint Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) algorithm for channel estimation and data detection in presence of Phase Noise (PHN) in iterative Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) receivers used for high speed and high spectral efficient wireless communication systems. The MAP cost function for joint estimation and detection is derived and optimized further with the proposed cyclic gradient descent optimization algorithm. The proposed joint estimation and detection algorithm relaxes the restriction of small PHN assumption and utilizes the prior statistical knowledge of PHN spectral components to produce statistically optimal solution. The frequency domain estimation of Channel Transfer Function (CTF) in frequency selective fading makes the method simpler, compared with the estimation of Channel Impulse Response (CIR) in time domain. Two different models for time-varying PHN, produced by Free Running Oscillator (FRO) and Phase Locked Loop (PLL) oscillator, are presented and compared for performance difference with proposed OFDM receiver. Simulation results for joint MAP channel estimation are compared with Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) and the simulation results for joint MAP data detection are compared with “NO PHN” performance to demonstrate that the proposed joint MAP estimation and detection algorithm achieves near optimum performance even under multipath channel fading.