PERFORMANCE OF MIMO MC-CDMA SYSTEM WITH CHANNEL ESTIMATION AND MMSE EQUALIZATION

Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology
20th
January 2014. Vol. 59 No.2
© 2005 - 2014 JATIT & LLS. All rights reserved.
ISSN: 1992-8645 www.jatit.org E-ISSN: 1817-3195
436
PERFORMANCE OF MIMO MC-CDMA SYSTEM WITH
CHANNEL ESTIMATION AND MMSE EQUALIZATION
1
N. TAMILARASAN, 2
L. NITHYANANDAN
1
Department Electronics and Communication Engg., Shri Krishnaa College of Engg. and Tech
Puducherry
2
Department Electronics and Communication Engg., Pondicherry Engg College, Puducherry
E-mail: 1
neithalarasu@gmail.com, 2
nithi@pec.edu
ABSTRACT
The quality of a wireless link can be described by three basic parameters, namely transmission rate, transmission range
and transmission reliability. With the advent of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) assisted Multicarrier code
division multiple access (MC-CDMA) systems, the above-mentioned three parameters may be simultaneously
improved. The MC-CDMA combined with the MIMO technique, has become a core technology for future mobile radio
communication system. However, possible potential gain in spectral efficiency is challenged by the receiver’s ability to
accurately detect the symbol due to inter symbol interference (ISI). Multipath propagation, mobility of transmitter,
receiver and local scattering cause the signal to be spread in frequency, different arrival time and angle, which results in
ISI in the received signal. This will affect overall system performance. The use of MC-CDMA mitigates the problem of
time dispersion. However, still it is necessary to remove the amplitude and phase shift caused by channel. To solve this
problem, a multiple antenna array can be used at the receiver, not only for spectral efficiency or gain enhancement, but
also for interference suppression. This can be done by the, efficient channel estimation with strong equalization. This
paper proposes MIMO MC-CDMA system, Minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalization with pilot based
channel estimation. The simulation result shows improved Bit error rate (BER) performance when the sub carrier (SC)
and antenna configuration were increased.
Keywords: MC-CDMA, ISI, MMSE Equalization And Pilot Based Channel Estimation
1. INTRODUCTION
The performance of a wireless communication
system can be substantially improved by MIMO
antenna techniques. Antenna diversity is an
effective way to achieve spatial diversity. MC-
CDMA, on the other hand, is also a promising
technology for the next generation wireless
communication systems, which is a combination of
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
(OFDM) and code division multiple access
(CDMA). By benefiting from both techniques,
MIMO MC-CDMA possess many advantages in
terms of insensitivity to frequency selective
channels, frequency diversity, efficient utilization
of bandwidth and ability to flexibly generate high
data rates within a fixed bandwidth.
In the high data rate transmission system the
frequency selective fading effect due to multi-path
propagation causes the ISI. In order to reduce the
ISI effect, the cyclic prefix is utilized to modify the
frequency selective fading into frequency flat
fading. The systems need an estimation of the
frequency selective fading coefficients to
counteract fading and interference to improve
system performance and capacity.
One of the most critical and challenging parts of
the receiver is to obtain the channel state
information accurately and promptly for detection
of information symbols. Since the overall system
BER performance depends heavily on the
estimation accuracy, the channel tracking
capabilities (for time variant channels), and the
compensation efficiency. Especially, for the MIMO
MC-CDMA system the accurate channel estimation
and equalization is much more critical in the overall
system performance since orthogonality has been
applied on both space and frequency domain.
Hence, the ability of the system to recover and
maintain the orthogonal properties make into a key
factor for achieving the robust high data capacity
communication links.
So an accurate estimation of fading channel is
always required for symbol detection. Although
differential demodulation can be used without
channel estimation, but this results in up to 3 dB
loss in signal-to noise ratio (SNR). The channel
state information can be obtained through training

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437
based, blind and semi blind channel Estimation.
The blind channel estimation is carried out by
evaluating the statistical information of the channel
and certain properties of the transmitted signals.
Blind Channel Estimation has its advantage in that
it has no overhead loss but it has less accuracy, it is
only applicable to slowly time-varying channels
due to its need for a long data record. In training
based channel estimation algorithms, training
symbols or pilot tones that are known a priori to the
receiver, are multiplexed along with the data stream
for channel estimation. Semi-blind techniques make
use of both pilots and the natural constraints to
efficiently estimate the channel. These methods use
pilots to obtain an initial channel estimate and
improve the estimate by using a variety of a priori
information. Thus, in addition to the pilots, semi-
blind methods use the cyclic prefix, time and
frequency correlation, Gaussian assumption on
transmitted data, virtual carriers for channel
estimation and subsequent data detection. Among
the various channel estimation technique pilot
based channel estimation is to be considered a good
solution because of its more accuracy.
Differentiate demodulation without channel
estimation is used in [1] which results SNR loss of
up-to 3 db. Chang- yi yang et al has derived the
channel tracking method using kalman filter which
results in better estimation accuracy but suffer from
computational complexity and delay [2,3]. Various
authors have reported the effect of channel
estimation error and phase noise [4-7]. Some
authors have tried channel estimation using known
training sequence and training algorithm for
MIMO-OFDM system [8-10]. Andrea Conti and
Barbara Masini discussed Partial equalization for
MC-CDMA wireless Systems in which only partial
compensation of phase distortion carried out to
avoid noise but sufficient compensation of phase
distortion must take place to avoid noise[11,12]. In
[13], author has explained orthogonality restoring
combining technique for MC-CDMA system, this
system totally avoids multiuser interference but it
enhances noise. Equalization based on Zero forcing
and MMSE [14] was explained for single carrier
transmission system only. Among the various
equalization methods for MIMO and MC-CDMA,
MMSE is considered to be a good solution for data
recovery since it can effectively reduce the ISI and
utilize the diversity of the frequency-selective
channel [15].
From the literature survey it is observed most of
the author’s discussed either channel estimation or
equalization for the system. But the performance of
the system depends on both estimation and
equalization. In our previous work [16] equalization
for MIMO MC-CDMA was explained and
simulation has been done for different SC and
antenna configuration with idle channel estimation.
In this paper for the same MIMO MC-CDMA
system the channel estimation has been
incorporated with equalization. This paper
discusses the both channel estimation and
equalization for the MIMO-MC-CDMA system.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows;
system model is described in section II, the
simulation result and discussion is in section III and
the conclusion is in section IV.
2. SYSTEM MODEL
Figure 1: Simple Model of MIMO MC-CDMA Transmitter
Figure 2: Simple Model of MIMO MC-CDMA Receiver
Figures 1 and 2 show the simple model of MIMO
MC-CDMA transmitter and receiver respectively.
The transmitter of MIMO MC-CDMA consists of
BPSK/QPSK modulator, Direct sequence spreader
and OFDM modulator. In these schemes the pilot
sequence are very important for the performance.
After modulating, the data stream is multiplied by a
spreading sequence. The length of this spreading
code is usually identical to the number of SC. The
pilot signals are multiplexed to the data streams,
after OFDM modulation the signals are transmitted
through multiple antennas.
The received signal is demodulated using Fast
Fourier transform (FFT). After OFDM
demodulation the user data symbols and pilot
symbols are recovered by despreading with
corresponding spreading codes. The required
transfer function for channel estimation and
equalization is recovered from pilot sequence.
Finally the original data stream is recovered by
dividing the received signal by channel response.
At the receiver end, the demodulator process the
channel equalized waveform and reduces each
waveform to a scalar (or) a vector that represents an
Data in Encoding Spreading
IFFTPilot
Insertion
IFFT
FFT Equalization
& Despreading
FFT
Channel Estimation
Decoding
Output

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0 5 10 15
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
Eb/No (dB)
BER
2 x 2
4 x 4
2 x 2 MMSE
4 x 4 MMSE
estimation of the transmitted data symbol. The
detector, which follows the demodulator, decides
whether the transmitted bit is a 0 or 1.
Consider a MIMO MC-CDMA system having Nc
subcarrier and T R
N N× MIMO system, the
transmitted signal after modulation can be
expressed as
2
1 1
( ) ( )
( )cos( ) (1)
cT
b
c s
s
NN
E
k nN T
i k n
T s n
s t b i c
u t iT tω
∞
=−∞ = =
=
−
∑ ∑ ∑
where Eb and Ts are the bit energy and symbol
duration respectively, uTs(t) represents a
rectangular waveform with amplitude 1 and pulse
duration Ts, bk(i) is the ith
transmitted data bit, cn
is the spreading code, T
N is the transmitting
antenna, ωn = 2πf0+ 2π(n - 1)∆f is the radian
frequency of the nth
SC, and the frequency spacing
is ∆f = 1/Ts.
The received signal r(t) through receiving antenna
R
N l is given by
2
1 1
. ( )cos( ) (2)
( ) ( ) ( )
s
cR
b
c s
T s n n
NN
E
n k nN T
i k n
u t iT t
r t t h b i c
ω ϕ
η
∞
=−∞ = =
− +
= + ∑ ∑∑
Where hn is the SC flat fading gain, φn is the SC
fading phase and η(t) is Additive white Gaussian
noise (AWGN) with single-sided power spectral
density N0. After phase compensation, the receiver
performs amplitude correction using equalizer
coefficient. The received signal after FFT is given by
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ), 0,1,.., 1 (3)cY k X k H k W k k N= + = −
The received pilot signals YP(k) are extracted from
Y(k), the channel transfer function H(k) can be
obtained from the information carried by HP(k)
with the knowledge of the channel responses H(k).
The transmitted data samples X(k) can be recovered
by simply dividing the received signal by sample
response. Finally the signals are equalized by
MMSE technique [16].
3. SIMULATION RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The system with diversity technique for MIMO
MC-CDMA is simulated using MATLAB with the
parameters given in Table 1. The result shows the
BER performance with respect to energy per bits to
spectral noise density (Eb/No) of the system with/
without channel estimation under Rayleigh fading
channel.
Table 1: Simulation Parameters
Spreading Codes Walsh-Hadamard Code
Number of sub carriers 16/64 /128
Channel Rayleigh fading
Modulation BPSK/QPSK
Antennas 2x2/ 3x3/ 4x4/2x3/3x2
Estimation/Equalization
technique
MMSE/Pilot
Figure 3: Error Performance (BPSK, 16 SC)
The diversity technique uses 2, 3 and 4 antennas
for both transmitter and receiver. The result
indicates that with diversity, performance of the
system improves in terms of BER. Along with
diversity technique the system was tested with
different SC (16, 64, and 128) and different
modulation technique (BPSK and QPSK). From the
result it is observed that when the number of SC is
increased, the performance of the system gets
increased due to reduction of ISI. As the number of
SC increases, the frequency diversity also increases
which in turn reduces the error rate.

20th
439
0 5 10 15
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
Eb/No (dB)
BER
2 x 2
4 x 4
2 x 2 MMSE
4 x 4 MMSE
0 5 10 15
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
Eb/No (dB)
BER
2 x 2
4 x 4
2 x 2 MMSE
4 x 4 MMSE
0 5 10 15
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
Eb/No (dB)
BER
2 x 2
4 x 4
2 x 2 MMSE
4 X 4 MMSE
0 5 10 15
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
Eb/No (dB)
BER
2 x 2
4 x 4
2 x 2 MMSE
4 x 4 MMSE
Figure 4: Error Performances (BPSK, 64 SC)
Figure 5: Error Performances (BPSK, 128 SC)
Figure 3 shows the BER performance of MIMO
MC-CDMA with (line graph) or without (legend
graph) MMSE channel estimation and equalization
for BPSK modulation for different antenna
configuration. It is noticed that when the number of
antennas are increased, the performance of the
system is increased due to the exploitation of space
diversity. From the graphs it is evident that the
system with MMSE estimation performs better due
to the reduction of ISI. The same system is tested
for different SC also, which is shown in figures 4
and 5. From figures 3, 4 and 5 it is observed that
the performance of the system gradually increases
due to the increase in number of SC i.e as
frequency diversity increases.
Figure 6: Error Performances (QPSK, 16 SC)
Figures 6, 7 and 8 show the BER performance of
MIMO-MC CDMA with and without MMSE for
QPSK modulation. Comparing figures 3, 4 and 5
with figures 6, 7 and 8, the latter figures show
slightly lesser performance, and is an evident for
higher modulation order performing less. Figure 9
illustrates the performance of the system with
different combination of transmit and receive
antennas, like 3 x 3 and 2 x 3. It is inferred the
performance of 3 x 3 and 2 x 3 are approximately
same. However the system with more receiving
antenna gives slightly improved performance, than
more transmitting antennas. From the simulation
results it is quite clear that in all the cases the
system with MMSE equalization and estimation

20th
440
0 5 10 15
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
Eb/No (dB)
BER
2 x 2
4 x 4
2 x 2 MMSE
4 x 4 MMSE
0 5 10 15
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
Eb/No(dB)
BER
3 x 2
3 x 3
2 x 3
2 x 3 MMSE
3 x 2 MMSE
3 x 3 MMSE
Figure 9: Error Performances (BPSK, 128 SC) of the
System with Different Combinations of Transmit and
Receive Antenna
performs better. Comparing with our previous work
it is clear that the performance is slightly poor as
the estimation here closely matches with the
realistic situation.
4. CONCLUSION
It is well known that the wireless channel causes
an arbitrary time and frequency dispersion,
attenuation, amplitude distortion and phase shift in
the received signal. The use of MIMO MC-CDMA
mitigates the effect of time dispersion. Still it is
necessary to remove the ISI to increase overall
system performance. In this paper the performance
of MIMO MC-CDMA signals in frequency
selective fading channels with pilot based channel
estimation and MMSE equalization is discussed to
compensate the ISI. The result shows the
performance of the system with two different
modulations. From the simulation results it is
inferred that the system with pilot based channel
estimation and MMSE equalization reduces the
BER of MIMO MC-CDMA in the Rayleigh fading
channel as ISI is drastically reduced. The proposed
channel estimation technique can be, in general,
used for channels with high selectivity in both
frequency and time by simply using appropriate
pilot patterns. The minimum complexity and
superior channel tracking capability of the proposed
technique enables MIMO MC-CDMA receiver to
process huge data rate in highly selective channels
with better performance.
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PERFORMANCE OF MIMO MC-CDMA SYSTEM WITH CHANNEL ESTIMATION AND MMSE EQUALIZATION

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