Exploiting error-control coding and cyclic-prefix in channel estimation for coded OFDM systems

OFDM systems typically use coding and interleaving across subchannels to exploit frequency diversity on frequency-selective channels. This paper presents a low-complexity iterative algorithm for combined blind and semi-blind channel estimation and soft decoding in coded OFDM systems. Channel estimation is performed in the time domain using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm to take advantage of the channel-length constraint and the extra observation offered by the cyclic-prefix. The proposed technique converges within a single OFDM symbol and, therefore, has a minimum latency and is suitable for fast time-varying channels.