Data-Aided Channel Estimation for MC-CDMA Systems with Transmit Diversity in Wireless Channels

In this paper, we address the problem of data-aided channel estimation in an MC-CDMA system with multiple transmitting antennas. First, we take into consideration a method proposed for OFDM with transmit diversity that relies on the frequency correlation of adjacent subchannels. Then, we propose a new method based on the assumption of a channel slowly varying with time. The performance of the two estimators has been evaluated in terms of mean square error (MSE) of channel estimates and bit error rate (BER), considering a different number of active users in the downlink case. We have considered two channels with different frequency selectivity. The results show that in the presence of a frequency selective channel the proposed method outperforms the method based on frequency correlation and it behaves more robustly against multi-user interference.