Frequency-selective fading channel estimation with a polynomial time-varying channel model

A rectangular-windowed least-squares estimator using a polynomial model of the time-varying channel taps is proposed for estimating the impulse response of a frequency-selective fading channel. This method provides a significant improvement in mean square identification error (MSIE) over the conventional least mean squares (LMS) and the exponentially weighted recursive least squares (EW-RLS) algorithms without a polynomial model. A detailed study of the effects of channel parameters, such as the fading rate and the signal-to-noise ratio, on the proposed method is carried out. The performance of the method depends on the window size of the least squares estimator and the polynomial order being used. Algorithms to obtain the approximately optimal window size and polynomial order are proposed and are shown to perform well.