Pilot-aided channel estimation in cooperative SFBC-OFDM networks
M. Abou Bakr Othman, Mahmoud H. Ismail, Magdy S. El-Soudani · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2011
Cooperative Relaying is deemed as one of the most promising techniques in the current research in terms of providing superior space coverage and robust performance. In this paper, we focus on cooperative wireless networks employing Space Frequency Block Coding (SFBC) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) at the relay nodes, which use the well-known Decode and Forward (DF) protocol. Previous works usually assume perfect channel estimation at the receiving end, which is an unrealistic assumption. We focus here on estimating the Relays to Destination (RTD) links through pilots insertion at the relays side. The efficiency of the proposed channel estimation algorithm is tested using the Mean Square Error (MSE) criterion and good agreement between the estimated and actual values is observed. We then evaluate overall performance of the cooperative SFBC-OFDM system through Bit Error Rate (BER) criterion under realistic situation where proposed algorithm is employed.