A Method of Estimating Sparse and Doubly-Dispersive Channels

Abstract

The large delay and Doppler spreads of skywave high-frequency (HF) channels complicates channel acquisition, especially in low-SNR conditions. Using pilot-symbol assisted modulation, we develop a robust method to acquire channel information by first estimating the power-delay profile (PDP) of the channel, then applying that estimate to obtain the channel coefficients only where the PDP is nonzero. We find the presented approach to be robust at low-SNRs, making it suitable for spread-spectrum and underlay waveforms. We show that this two-stage channel acquisition procedure has three advantages: i),the channel is estimated with fewer terms, reducing complexity; ii), the MSE of the channel estimate is lower than assuming a fixed channel length; and iii), each propagation mode is reliably recovered in high-Doppler conditions. We conclude this paper by presenting results of the developed techniques as applied to a filter-bank multicarrier spread-spectrum (FBMC-SS) waveform.