A new finite alphabet based blind channel estimation algorithm for OFDM systems

A new blind channel estimation algorithm is proposed based on the finite alphabet property of the transmitted symbols and the correlation between the channel attenuations at the adjacent subcarriers. The new method preserves the classical OFDM transmitter structure with cyclic prefix (CP) used in all standardized multicarrier systems (such as DAB, IEEE802.Ha, Hiperlan/2, etc.) as well as the newly proposed OFDM with zero padding (ZP). The new method proves via simulations to provide an unbiased channel estimates and its performance is independent of the channel zero locations.