Joint channel estimation and equalization in multicarrier modulation system using cyclic prefix

Multicarrier modulation (MCM) is a promising technique for high rate data transmission. A one-tap equalizer is an essential part of the MCM system and channel estimation is needed to obtain the coefficient of the equalizer. Lack of correct channel estimation may cause significant performance degradation. We propose to use the cyclic prefix to estimate the channel for the MCM system. We found that the cyclic prefix originally used solely to guarantee the optimality of modulation using the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) can be viewed as a source of channel information. Based on this observation, we propose a joint channel estimation and equalization algorithm using the cyclic prefix. Our simulations show that the algorithm can adaptively track the variation of a moderately time varying channel and has about 1-2 dB gain over the system using the channel estimation obtained by the conventional training schemes