A novel approach for multipath channel estimation in CDMA networks using the Unscented Kalman Filter

The paper proposes a novel approach for time delay and channel gain estimation for multipath fading Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) signals using the unscented Kalman filter (UKF). Given the nonlinear dependency of the channel parameters on the received signals in multiuser/multipath scenarios, we show that the UKF achieves better performance than its linear counterparts. The UKF, which is a derivative-free Kalman filtering approach, avoids the errors associated with linearization in the conventional extended Kalman filter (EKF). The Numerical results also show that the proposed UKF is simpler to implement, and more resilient to near-far interference in CDMA networks.