Semi-blind pilot-aided channel estimation in uplink cloud radio access networks

In this paper, a quasi-Newton method for semi-blind estimation is derived for channel estimation in uplink cloud radio access networks (C-RANs). Different from traditional pilot-aided estimation, semi-blind estimation utilizes the unknown data symbols in addition to the known pilot symbols to estimate the channel. An initial channel state information (CSI) obtained by least-squared (LS) estimation is needed in semi-blind estimation. BFGS (Brayben, Fletcher, Goldfarb and Shanno) algorithm, which employs data as well as pilot symbols, estimates the CSI though solving the problem provided by maximum-likelihood (ML) principle. In addition, mean-square-error (MSE) used to evaluate the estimation performance can be further minimized with an optimal pilot design. Simulation results show that the semi-blind estimation achieves a significant improvement in terms of MSE performance over the conventional LS estimation by utilizing data symbols instead of increasing the number of pilot symbols, which demonstrates the estimation accuracy and spectral efficiency are both improved by semi-blind estimation for C-RANs.