Method and device for channel estimation, and corresponding computer program product

Abstract

An embodiment of the time-variant channel estimation in an OFDM transmission system envisages the operations of: a) determining the received signal vector Yfor one or more of R receiving antennas, j=1, . . . , R, and at the current time instant k together with the frequency-domain channel-estimate vector Ĥat a preceding time instant k−1 and for each antenna j of one or more of R receiving antennas; b) producing a first estimate Âof the transmitted digital symbols at the current time instant k on the basis of the aforesaid frequency-domain channel-estimate vectors Ĥat the preceding time instant k−1; c) computing an updated version of the frequency-domain channel-estimate vectors Ĥat the current time instant k and for each antenna j of one or more of R receiving antennas on the basis of the received signal vectors Yat the current time instant k and for each antenna j of one or more of R receiving antennas, using the aforesaid estimate Âof the transmitted digital symbols at the current time instant k as set of known transmitted digital symbols; d) using the aforesaid updated version of the frequency-domain channel-estimate vectors Ĥat the current time instant k and for each antenna j of one or more of R receiving antennas, for equalizing the paths of the transmission channel and decoding the received signal vectors Yat the current time instant k and for each antenna j of one or more of R receiving antennas; and e) storing the updated versions of the channel-estimate vectors for using them in steps a) and b) at the next time instant k+1.