Joint data and channel estimation for TDMA mobile channels

One of the main problems in time-division multiple-access (TDMA) digital mobile communications is the poor performance of the receiver for fast-fading channels. We propose to use a novel joint data and channel estimation (JDCE) technique to improve performance. The basic idea of this method originates from the so-called generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) test of classical detection theory. The technique was combined with the well-known Viterbi algorithm and applied to blind equalization by Seshadri [1]. In this paper, we introduce this technique to TDMA mobile communications. We find that the problems of delayed channel updating and divergence caused by error decision feedback in conventional maximum likelihood sequence estimation with decision delay (MLSE/DD) can be completely solved. An improvement of 4.5 dB can be obtained compared with the MLSE/DD method when it is applied to the Northern American Digital Cellular (NADC) system. The specified IS-54 requirement of 19 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at a bit error rate (BER) of 3% and a vehicle speed of 100 km/h can be met with a remarkable margin of 8 dB. When the intersymbol interference (ISI) of a channel is not severe, the required computation is moderate. For example, in the NADC system, the computational burden of the JDCE method is twice that of the MLSE/DD method if the least-mean-squares (LMS) algorithm is used for channel tracking.