Joint model for fine synchronization and adaptive LMMSE channel estimation in uplink OFDMA

In this paper parametric tracking of channel and synchronization errors for an adaptive multi-dimensional channel estimator for uplink Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex Access (OFDMA) communication systems is proposed. The estimator consists of a two-dimensional LMMSE filter. In real world scenarios, channel estimation should work not only in a wide range of terminal velocities and delay spread but it is also confronted with time and frequency synchronization errors affecting the channel estimation and thus limits the performance of both the coherent receiver and overall OFDMA system. We jointly track channel statistics and synchronization errors so that LMMSE filter coefficients closely reflect the current statistics of the channel. Through simulations it is verified that the proposed channel estimator outperforms the robust LMMSE estimator in the presence of synchronization errors and varying channel conditions.