A robust channel estimator for DS-CDMA systems under multipath fading channels

This paper addresses the problem of channel estimation for direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems with time-varying multipath fading channels. The multipath fading channels are modeled as autoregressive (AR) models. A method is first proposed to convert the time-varying regression model due to the time-varying nature of users' information symbols into a time-invariant one. Then, a polynomial approach is proposed to obtain the minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimator. The uncertainty of the channel model and decision errors of the DS-CDMA detector are taken into consideration in the design of the MMSE estimator. Compared with the Kalman estimator, the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is much lower. The simulation results show that the proposed estimator provides a comparable estimation performance with the Kalman estimator and is robust for fast-fading channels.