Clustered OFDM with channel estimation for high rate wireless data

Clustered OFDM can provide in-band diversity gain for wideband wireless communication systems. It is a promising technique for high rate packet data access over wideband mobile wireless channels. Due to the smaller size of each cluster for clustered OFDM than for classical (nonclustered) OFDM, edge effects can be very large. In this letter, we present new transforms for channel estimators in clustered OFDM systems. The new transforms are independent of the channel delay profiles and can effectively mitigate the edge effects. It is shown by computer simulation that the performance of clustered OFDM with the estimator using the new transforms is very close to the performance with the optimum estimator that is determined by the individual channel delay profile. Furthermore, clustered OFDM with the new estimator is almost as good as classical OFDM with transmit diversity.