Unification of MLSE receivers and extension to time-varying channels

Forney (1972) and Ungerboeck (1974) have each developed maximum-likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) receivers for intersymbol interference (ISI) channels. The Forney receiver uses a whitened matched filter, followed by a sequence estimation algorithm using the Euclidean distance metric. The Ungerboeck receiver uses a matched filter, followed by a sequence estimation algorithm using a modified metric. A unified development of both receivers is given, in which each receiver is derived from the other. By deriving the Ungerboeck receiver from the Forney receiver, we show that the whitening operation is cancelled in the Euclidean distance metric, leaving the modified metric. In addition, the Ungerboeck receiver is extended to the case of a time-varying known channel. When the channel is unknown, decision-directed channel estimation is assumed, which requires channel prediction to account for the decision delay. It is shown that the Ungerboeck receiver requires additional channel prediction, degrading performance due to prediction uncertainty. To solve this problem, two alternative receiver forms are developed which do not require additional prediction, though the computational complexity is increased. Performance and complexity of the receiver forms are compared for the IS-136 digital cellular time-division multiple-access (TDMA) standard.