Implementation and co-simulation of hybrid pilot-aided channel estimation with decision feedback equalizer for OFDM systems

Abstract

This paper introduces novel hybrid pilot-aided channel estimation with decision feedback equalizer(DFE) for OFDM systems and its corresponding hardware co-simulation platform. This pilot-aided channel estimation algorithm consists of two parts: coarse estimation and fine estimation. In the coarse estimation, the combined classical channel estimation methods including carrier frequency offset (CFO) and channel impulse response (CIR) estimation are used. Based on the received training sequence and pilot tones in the frequency domain, the major CFO, sampling clock frequency offset (SFO) and CIR effect coefficients are derived. In the fine estimation, the pilot-aided polynomial interpolation estimation combined with a new decision feedback equalizer scheme based on minimum mean squared error (MMSE) criteria is proposed to reduce the residual effect caused by imperfect CIR equalizer, SFO and CFO. At the same time, for the purpose of speeding up the whole development and verification process, a new architecture of co-simulation platform which combines software and hardware is introduced. The simulation results on the co-simulation platform indicate that the proposed hybrid channel estimation scheme can enhance the receiver performance by 6 dB in terms of error vector magnitude (EVM) over large ranges of CFO and SFO and BER performance by 7 dB for SNR range over 15 dB.