Blind symbol detection and channel acquisition in fast-fading wireless systems with space diversity

In this paper we tackle the joint source symbol detection and multi-channel acquisition problem in the context of wireless digital flat-fading links with space diversity. We propose a simple parametric statistical channel model which decouples the time dynamics of the channel vector in amplitude and direction. We implement the corresponding maximum a posteriori (MAP) joint estimator for the amplitude and direction of the channel vector and the source information symbols. We derive a computationally attractive iterative scheme to solve the optimization problem associated with the MAP estimator. This scheme is based on differential-geometric concepts and fully exploits the curvature of the surface constraint. Preliminary computer simulations assessing the good performance of our proposed solutions are included.