Blind Maximum Likelihood Interference Cancellation for LTE-Advanced Systems

In this paper, we address the problem of co-channel interference cancellation and suppression for 3GPP LTE Advanced systems. We propose a blind maximum likelihood (ML) interference suppression receiver relying on direct estimation of the interfering signal parameters, such as transmission scheme, precoding vector, power boosting and modulation. In previous work on ML interference cancellation, that information was assumed to be available at the receiver side. However, the problem of the interfering signal parameter estimation was not addressed. In this paper, we propose a covariance matrix-based estimation algorithm operating directly on the received signal to obtain the desired interference parameters. It is shown by simulation that the accuracy of the proposed estimation scheme is sufficient to facilitate blind operation of the ML receiver in LTE-A networks with performance comparable to the genie-aided ML receiver. This paper first describes the joint ML demodulation scheme for the serving and interfering signals. Then, we discuss how the parameters of the interfering signal can be estimated in LTE-A systems to assist blind ML demodulation. It is finally demonstrated by link level simulation that the proposed blind ML receiver outperforms the conventional linear MMSE-IRC receiver for the investigated cell-edge scenario.