Performance Analysis of Channel Coding Schemes with Blind Channel Estimation

Blind channel estimation (BCE) of multi channel FIR filters is an issue arising in e.g. mobile communication systems using digital signaling. It also arises in the presence of frequency selective fading, when training (reference/pilot) symbols are unavailable. In this contribution we analyze the performances of two types of channel coding schemes; turbo coding and serial concatenated convolutional coding (SCCC), with BCE. The BCE technique used here is a second order statistics algorithm based on subspace decomposition (SSD). The coding schemes are combined with this BCE technique to characterize a realistic scenario: in that we do not assume the transmitted signal to be white. Two types of blind equalizers are investigated; the zero forcing and the minimum mean squared error equalizers. The results show that the turbo-coding scheme performs better than the SCCC scheme by an average of 1-1.5dB.