Joint processing of an adaptive array and an MLSE for multipath channels

Joint processing of an adaptive array and a maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) is proposed to cope with multipath channels. The proposed scheme generates replicas of multiple desired paths with different delays received at all antennas. The errors between the array outputs and the replicas are branch metric combined in the Viterbi algorithm to estimate the most likely transmitted sequence. The replicas are also used as reference signals for controlling the array weights to suppress undesired paths. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can provide a better bit error rate (BER) performance than a conventional adaptive array antenna or a conventional MLSE in multipath channels