Pilot-Aided Angle-Domain Channel Estimation Techniques for MIMO-OFDM Systems

Early multiple-input multiple-output with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) channel estimation techniques treat channels as spatially uncorrelated. However, in many situations, MIMO-OFDM channels tend to be spatially correlated, for example, due to limited scattering. For such channels, estimation performance can be improved through exploitation of prior knowledge of the channel spatial correlation, for example, by means of the linear multiple mean square error (MMSE) technique. This knowledge is, however, not always available. As an alternative, we investigate techniques in the angle domain, where the MIMO-OFDM channel model lends itself to a physical interpretation. Our theoretical analysis and simulation results indicate that the proposed angle-domain approximated MMSE (AMMSE) channel estimation technique performs well in terms of the mean square error (mse) for various channel models representing different indoor environments. When a suitable threshold is chosen, we can use the angle-domain most-significant-taps selection technique instead of the angle-domain AMMSE technique to simplify the channel estimation procedure with little performance loss.