The use of decorrelation and code division multiplexed pilots for DS-CDMA systems with multiantenna receivers

In this paper, we investigate the use of code division multiplexed (CDM) pilots for channel estimation for direct-sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems with multiple receive antennas. Decorrelation is used on the output of each receive antenna to remove MAI from both the data and pilot streams. This leads to more reliable channel estimation which in turn reduces the combination loss. We look at the bit error rate (BER) performance of this system in flat Rayleigh fading.