Estimation of time-varying multipath Rayleigh fading channels in asynchronous DS-CDMA systems

We present the channel estimation algorithms for the asynchronous direct-sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems employing the orthogonal signalling formats and long scrambling codes. The performance of a communication system depends largely on its ability to retrieve an accurate measurement of the underlying channel. We investigated channel estimation algorithms under different conditions. The estimated channel information is used to enable the coherent data detection to combat the detrimental effect of multipath propagation of the transmitted signal as well as multiple access interference (MAI). Different channel estimation schemes are evaluated and compared in terms of mean square error (MSE) of the channel estimate and the bit error rate (BER) performance. Based on our analysis and numerical results, some recommendations are made on how to choose appropriate channel estimators in practical systems.