An analysis of two-dimensional pilot-symbol assisted modulation for OFDM

In this paper we analyze two-dimensional (2D) pilot-symbol assisted modulation (PSAM) for wireless orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). 2D-PSAM has been suggested for wireless OFDM by several authors and is included in a preliminary draft of the standard for European digital video broadcast. We generalize the analysis of single-carrier PSAM to the 2D time-frequency lattice of OFDM. We analyze 2D-PSAM for two different channel estimators: one with good performance and high complexity and one suboptimal with low complexity. We verify that a good rule of thumb is to place the pilots at least as twice as close, in time and frequency, as required by the 2D sampling theorem.