Channel estimation for OFDM systems with transmitter diversity in mobile wireless channels

Transmitter diversity is an effective technique to improve wireless communication performance. In this paper, we investigate transmitter diversity using space-time coding for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in high-speed wireless data applications. We develop channel parameter estimation approaches, which are crucial for the decoding of the space-time codes, and we derive the MSE bounds of the estimators. The overall receiver performance using such a transmitter diversity scheme is demonstrated by extensive computer simulations. For an OFDM system with two transmitter antennas and two receiver antennas with transmission efficiency as high as 1.475 bits/s/Hz, the required signal-to-noise ratio is only about 7 dB for a 1% bit error rate and 9 dB for a 10% word error rate assuming channels with two-ray, typical urban, and hilly terrain delay profiles, and a 40-Hz Doppler frequency. In summary, with the proposed channel estimator, combining OPDM with transmitter diversity using space-time coding is a promising technique for highly efficient data transmission over mobile wireless channels.