Low complexity time-domain channel and delay spread estimation for OFDM systems

A low complexity time-domain channel estimation scheme for OFDM systems is presented. It uses a training symbol (preamble) to estimate the channel impulse response (CIR) in the presence of timing synchronization errors. Its computational complexity is much lower than that of the popular MMSE technique and this can be further reduced if there is prior knowledge of the channel delay spread. Consequently, channel delay spread estimation is also addressed by using threshold setting on the optimized CIR. Computer simulations show that the proposed scheme achieves near-ideal accuracy in quasi-static channels.