Performance analysis of blind channel estimation using second order statistics

In this contribution, we derive the performance of blind channel estimation without relying on prior knowledge of the symbol statistic. In particular, a lower bound on the performance of the maximum likelihood (ML) estimator of FIR channels is derived and expressed in a simple closed-form. The dependence of system parameters such as the roll-off of the raised cosine shaping filter, the channel spectrum, the SNR and the sample size is made explicit and an application example referring to a two ray communication channel is discussed. Simulation results are also provided to assess the validity of the proposed theoretical expressions in comparison with common approaches encountered in the literature.