Performance Bounds Analysis for Semi-Blind Channel Estimation in MIMO-OFDM Communications Systems.

Most communications systems require channel estimation for equalization and symbol detection. Currently, this is achieved by using dedicated pilot symbols, which consume a non-negligible part of the throughput and power resources, especially for large dimensional systems. The main objective of this paper is to quantify the rate of reduction of this overhead due to the use of a semi-blind channel estimation. Different data models and different pilot design schemes have been considered in this paper. By using the Cramér Rao Bound (CRB) tool, the estimation error variance bounds of the pilot-based and semi-blind based channel estimators for a multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system are compared. In particular, for large MIMO-OFDM systems, a direct computation of the CRB is prohibitive, and hence, a dedicated numerical technique for its fast computation has been developed. Many key observations have been made from this comparative study. The most important one is that, thanks to the semi-blind approach, one can skip about 95% of the pilot samples without affecting the channel estimation quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]