A trellis-based technique for blind channel estimation and equalization

In this paper, we present a trellis-based blind channel estimation and equalization technique coupling two kinds of adaptive Viterbi algorithms. First, the initial blind channel estimation is accomplished by incorporating the list parallel Viterbi algorithm with the least mean square (LMS) updating approach. In this operation, multiple trellis mappings are preserved simultaneously and ranked in terms of path metrics. Equivalently, multiple channel estimates are maintained and updated once a single symbol is received. Second, the best channel estimate from the above operation will be adopted to set up the whole trellis. The conventional adaptive Viterbi algorithm is then applied to detect the signal and further update the channel estimate alternately. A small delay is introduced for the symbol detection and the decision feedback to smooth the noise impact. An automatic switch between the above two operations is also proposed by exploiting the evolution of path metrics and the linear constraint inherent in the trellis mapping. Simulation has shown an overall excellent performance of the proposed scheme in terms of mean square error (MSE) for channel estimation, robustness to the initial channel guess, computational complexity, and channel equalization.