Improved channel estimation and SIR measurement in WCDMA downlink systems

The rake receiver performance of a direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) system can significantly be degraded unless the channel condition is properly estimated. Since the channel condition is time-varying and location-dependent, it is desirable to employ an adaptive channel estimator (ACE) that can properly adjust the bandwidth of the channel estimation filter (CEF) according to the channel condition such as the maximum Doppler frequency. To this end, we propose low-complexity ACE and signal-to-interference power ratio (SIR) estimator for wide-band CDMA downlink systems with and without the use of transmit antenna diversity. The proposed schemes adjust the bandwidth of the CEF by exploiting the correlation characteristics of the received pilot signal. The analytic design is verified by computer simulation. Simulation results show that the proposed ACE and SIR estimator can significantly improve the link performance for a wide range of channel condition, particularly when the channel condition is poor.