IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO.

3, MARCH 2010 1355

A Low-Complexity and Efcient Channel Estimator
for Multiband OFDM-UWB Systems
Zhongjun Wang, Senior Member, IEEE, Yan Xin, Member, IEEE, George Mathew, Senior Member, IEEE,
and Xiaodong Wang, Fellow, IEEE
AbstractThis paper proposes an efcient channel-estimation
scheme for multiband (MB) orthogonal frequency-division mul-
tiplexing (OFDM)-based ultrawideband (UWB) communication
systems and, more specically, for practical implementation of
low-cost, high-speed, UWB-based wireless universal serial bus
(USB) devices. The proposed channel estimator consists of two
stages. The rst stage employs a simple least-squares (LS) method
together with a frequency-domain smoothing operation that esti-
mates the channel using the available training sequence. The sec-
ond stage uses this channel estimate to detect the frame header and
then renes the channel estimate by using a decision-directed tech-
nique. The mean-squared error performance and computational
complexity of the proposed scheme are analyzed. Numerical ex-
amples show that the proposed scheme substantially outperforms
the conventional LS approach and that it performs comparably
to the maximum-likelihood estimator, under various highly noisy
multipath channel conditions.
Index TermsChannel estimation, decision-directed,
frequency-domain smoothing, orthogonal frequency-division
multiplexing (OFDM), ultrawideband (UWB).
I. INTRODUCTION
M
ULTIBAND orthogonal frequency-division multiplex-
ing (MB-OFDM)-based ultrawideband (UWB) com-
munication technology has received considerable attention in
recent years [1][12], primarily due to its ability to mitigate
radio-frequency interference and multipath fading effects and
to achieve substantial spectral efciency at a relatively low cost.
This technology has been adopted to support high-speed short-
range wireless connectivity, e.g., the certied wireless universal
serial bus (USB) that aims to offer data rates up to 480 Mb/s
within 3 m is based on the MB-OFDM UWB technology [7].
To practically realize MB-OFDM UWB, one needs to cope
with numerous design challenges, particularly in receiver de-
Manuscript received May 6, 2009; revised September 15, 2009 and
October 28, 2009. First published December 15, 2009; current version pub-
lished March 19, 2010. This paper was presented in part at the IEEE Global
Communications Conference, New Orleans, LA, November 30December 4,
2008. The review of this paper was coordinated by Prof. J.-C. Lin.
Z. Wang is with Wipro Techno Centre Singapore, Singapore 117674 (e-mail:
zhongjun.wang@wipro.com).
Y. Xin was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
National University of Singapore, Singapore 117576. He is now with NEC
Laboratories America Inc., Princeton, NJ 08540 USA (e-mail: yanxin@nec-
labs.com).
G. Mathewis with the Read Channel Architecture Division, LSI Corporation,
Milpitas, CA 95035 USA (e-mail: George.Mathew@lsi.com).
X. Wang is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia Uni-
versity, New York, NY 10027 USA (e-mail: wangx@ee.columbia.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TVT.2009.2038270
signs such as symbol timing, carrier frequency offset (CFO),
and sampling frequency offset compensation, as well as channel
frequency response (CFR) estimation. In this paper, we focus
on the development of channel-estimation algorithms that can
efciently be implemented in practice. The OFDM-based UWB
system employs frame-based transmission [4]. Typically, the
UWB channel can be assumed to be invariant over the transmis-
sion period of one OFDM frame, and the estimation of the CFR
can be accomplished using the channel training sequence (also
known as block-type pilots in the context of channel estimation
for OFDM) included in the frame preamble. Any of the existing
schemes, such as the least-squares (LS), maximum-likelihood
(ML), or minimum mean-squared error (MMSE)-based algo-
rithms, can be adopted for CFR estimation [11][20]. Among
these, the LS estimator has the lowest complexity, but it cannot
achieve acceptable estimation accuracy in the low-signal-to-
noise ratio (SNR) regime [21], and hence, more sophisticated
channel estimation algorithms are required in UWB receiver
design. Although ML and MMSE estimators can achieve suf-
cient estimation accuracy, they generally are not suitable for
MB-OFDM UWB applications since they require either high
computational complexity or a knowledge of channel statistics
and SNR.
Recently, several modied MMSE and LS estimators with
low complexity and/or improved performance have been devel-
oped for OFDM applications (see [17] and references therein).
A singular value decomposition (SVD)-based frequency-
domain linear MMSE (LMMSE) estimator using a low-rank
approximation approach was proposed by Edfors et al. [18].
Another SVD-based channel estimator that is simplied by
making use of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) was pro-
posed by Li et al. [11]. Both of these approaches require
knowledge of the frequency-domain channel correlation and
SNR. Deneire et al. [19] introduced an ML-estimation scheme
that links the nite delay spread of the channel to the
frequency-domain channel correlation and achieves similar
noise-reduction capability as the LMMSE estimator. Aiming
to achieve low-complexity channel estimation in MB-OFDM
UWB applications, a time-domain LS estimator has recently
been proposed by Li and Minn [12]. This estimator also exploits
the nite delay spread property of the channel and, thus, can
be interpreted as a time-domain version of the ML estimator
with equivalent noise-reduction performance. However, as in
conventional ML estimation, it requires either prestoring a large
matrix or performing real-time matrix inversion. This require-
ment, in general, is prohibitive for practical implementation of
low-power and low-cost wireless UWB devices.
0018-9545/$26.00 2010 IEEE
1356 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2010
Fig. 1. MB-OFDM UWB frame structure, OFDM symbol indexing, and
multiband symbol grouping with TFC = 1.
In this paper, we present a novel and practical channel-
estimation scheme tailored to MB-OFDM UWB applications.
The proposed estimator is LS based but enhanced with a
frequency-domain smoothing operation, as well as a simple yet
effective decision-directed reestimation process. The proposed
scheme outperforms existing solutions [11], [12], [19] in the
sense that it achieves an estimation accuracy value compara-
ble with that of the ML estimator but with a computational
complexity similar to that of the conventional LS estimator.
In particular, the proposed channel estimator has been silicon-
proved effective in a transceiver prototyping system for low-
power wireless USB applications.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section II
describes the signal model for the MB-OFDM UWB sys-
tem. A multistage channel-estimation algorithm is proposed in
Section III, and its performance and implementation complex-
ity are analyzed in Section IV. Simulation results demonstrat-
ing the effectiveness of the proposed solutions are given in
Section V. Section VI concludes this paper.
II. SYSTEM MODEL
In this section, we describe the signal model of the
MB-OFDM UWB system dened in [5], focusing on the
OFDM signaling related to channel estimation and UWB chan-
nel modeling.
A. Transmitter Model
As shown in Fig. 1, each MB-OFDM UWB frame is com-
posed of a preamble, a header, and a payload. As specied in
[5], the preamble consists of 30 OFDM symbols, among which,
the last six symbols are dedicated to channel estimation. The
header consists of 12 OFDM symbols that convey information
about the frame conguration. The payload consists of M
OFDM data symbols, where M is an integer multiple of 6. In
Fig. 1, we index the OFDM symbols that are involved in chan-
nel estimation, i.e., the channel training symbols in preamble
and the frame header symbols, and are divided into groups, each
of which consists of six consecutive OFDM symbols.
The six OFDM symbols in a group may be transmitted in
multiple bands. The center frequency for the transmission of
each symbol is prescribed by a timefrequency code (TFC).
Fig. 1 shows one realization of the TFC (corresponding to
TFC=1 as dened in [4]), where the rst symbol of each group
is transmitted on Subband 1, the second symbol is transmitted
on Subband 2, the third symbol is transmitted on Subband 3,
the fourth symbol is transmitted on Subband 1, and so on.
Without loss of generality, we use TFC=1 in this paper. In this
case, there are three subbands, each of which consists of M
1
=2
training symbols and M
2
=4 frame header symbols. As indi-
cated in Fig. 1, index sets (
1
and T
1
specify indexes of training
symbols and the frame header, respectively, for Subband 1.
The subcarrier prole of an OFDM symbol is illustrated
and annotated in Fig. 2. Specically, each symbol employs
N = 128 subcarriers, which include R = 112 tones carrying
data (denoted by T
1
and T
2
), R
1
= 10 guard tones (denoted by
(
1
and (
2
), and R
2
= 6 direct current and virtual (null) tones
(denoted by Z). Among the R data tones, P = 12 tones are
assigned as pilots. Let us consider the nth OFDM symbol
S
n
= [S
n
(0), S
n
(1), . . . , S
n
(N 1)]
T
(1)
where S
n
(k) denotes the symbol modulating the kth subcar-
rier. Dene the pilot tone index set T = 5, 15, 25, 35, 45,
55, 73, 83, 93, 103, 113, 123. With reference to Fig. 2, the
symbols S
n
(k) for k T
1
, T
2
, (
1
, (
2
are drawn from a
quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) constellation, which is
denoted by c jc with j =

1 and c =

2/2. In partic-
ular, S
n
(k) is a known pilot symbol if k T. In addition,
S
n
(k) = 0 if k = 0 or k Z. The symbol vector S
n
is fed
to an N-point inverse DFT that yields an N 1 time-domain
vector denoted by x
n
. To eliminate the intersymbol interference
(ISI) resulting fromtime-dispersive channels, an N
g
-point zero-
padded (ZP) sufx is appended to each time-domain vector to
form an OFDM symbol.
Moreover, within the headers OFDM modulation process,
time-domain spreading is used by transmitting the same infor-
mation across two consecutive header OFDM symbols. Consid-
ering as an example the header symbols transmitted on Subband
1 and their adjacent symbols transmitted on Subband 2 or 3, we
have
S
n
(k) = S
n
(k), n T
1
; n
/
T
/
1
; [n n
/
[ = 1 (2)
for k 0, 1, . . . , N 1, where T
1
= 6, 9, 12, 15, and
T
1
/
= 7, 8, 13, 14 (see Fig. 1 for the relation between T
1
and
T
1
/
). It should also be noted that, within each OFDM symbol in
the header, a frequency-domain spreading technique is applied.
That is
S
n
(k) = [S
n
(N k)]

, k T
1
; n T (3)
where []

denotes complex conjugation. Such a spreading

maximizes frequency diversity by transmitting the same infor-
mation on two separate subcarriers within the same OFDM
symbol. This feature will be exploited in the development of
our channel estimator in Section III.
B. UWB Channel Model
The UWB channels can be described by using the
SalehValenzuela (SV) model [22]. The SV model uses a
WANG et al.: LOW-COMPLEXITY AND EFFICIENT CHANNEL ESTIMATOR FOR MULTIBAND OFDM-UWB SYSTEMS 1357
Fig. 2. Subcarrier indexing of OFDM symbols.
statistical process to model the discrete arrivals of the multi-
path components in clusters, as well as rays within a cluster.
Mathematically, the impulse response of the multipath model is
given by [1]
h(t) = X
L

l=0
K

k=0

k,l
(t T
l

k,l
)
where (t) is the Dirac delta function, L is the number of
clusters, K is the number of rays in each cluster, T
l
is the delay
of the lth clusters rst path,
k,l
is the delay of the kth multipath
component (ray) relative to the lth cluster arrival time,
k,l
is
the multipath gain coefcient, and X represents the shadowing
factor of propagation channels.
The interarrival times of clusters and rays are exponentially
distributed with arrival rates and , respectively. The power
delay prole is given by
E
_
[
k,l
[
2
_
=
0
e
T
l
/
e

k,l
/
where E is the expectation operator,
0
is the mean energy
of the rst path of the rst cluster, is the cluster decay factor,
and is the ray decay factor. Moreover, the shadowing term X
is modeled as a lognormal random variable, i.e., 20 log
10
X
^(0,
2
x
), while the total energy contained in the terms
k,l
is
normalized to unity for each channel realization, i.e.,
L

l=0
K

k=0
[
k,l
[
2
= 1. (4)
Based on the SV model and the measurements of actual
channel environments, four types of indoor multipath chan-
nels, namely, CM1, CM2, CM3, and CM4, are dened by
the IEEE 802.15 TG3a with different values for parameters
, , , ,
2
x
, and each of them has 100 realizations [1], [4].
The modeling considers communications among UWB devices
located within a range of less than 10 m. Specically, for ranges
less than 4 m, CM1 and CM2 are used to model the line-
of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) channel environments,
respectively. For larger ranges, the NLOS CM3 and CM4 are
used, with emphasis on the strong delay dispersion involved
in CM4. Thus, we generally model the UWB channel in the
discrete-time domain as an N
h
-tap nite-impulse response lter
whose impulse response on a subband is denoted by
1
h = [h(0), h(1), . . . , h(N
h
1)]
T
. (5)
1
Following [23], the subband discrete-time domain channel-impulse re-
sponses can be obtained by converting h(t) to oversampled discrete-time
samples, followed by pulse-shaping ltering, complex downconversion, and
decimation. Without loss of generality and for notational convenience, we have
not used different notations to denote different impulse responses (including
N
h
) on different subbands.
The corresponding CFR H = [H(0), H(1), . . . , H(N 1)]
T
is given by H = F
N
h
h, where F
N
h
is the rst N
h
columns of
the N-point DFT matrix.
At the receiver, the received samples pass through an N-point
DFT processor after the N
g
ZP points of each OFDM symbol
are removed by using an overlapadd method (to convert linear
convolution to circular convolution in a ZP-OFDM system
[24]). We assume that N
h
N
g
and that perfect timing and
frequency synchronization (frame timing, symbol timing, and
CFO compensation) can be achieved by using the rst 24
OFDM symbols of the received preamble.
2
Thus, the output
samples of the DFT processor corresponding to the nth received
OFDM symbol, i.e., Y
n
= [Y
n
(0), Y
n
(1), . . . , Y
n
(N 1)], are
given by
Y
n
(k)=S
n
(k)H(k)+V
n
(k), k0,1,. . . , N1 (6)
where V
n
(k) denotes the channel noise at the kth subcarrier and
is modeled as a complex Gaussian random variable with mean
zero and variance
2
, i.e., V
n
(k) (^(0,
2
).
III. MULTISTAGE CHANNEL ESTIMATION
We dene the estimate of H on a subband as

H =
[

H(0),

H(1), . . . ,

H(N 1)]. Without loss of generality, in the
sequel, we focus on Subband 1. The proposed channel estimator
consists of ve steps, which are further grouped into two stages.
The rst stage includes the rst two steps, and the second stage
includes the rest. Let

H
q
= [

H
q
(0),

H
q
(1), . . . ,

H
q
(N 1)]
be the estimate of H after the qth step. The normalized mean-
squared error (NMSE) of this estimator is dened as
MSE
q
(k) = E
_

H
q
(k) H(k)

2
_
/E
0
, q = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
where E
0
= E[H(k)[
2
. Using (4), it can be shown
that E[H(k)[
2
= exp(0.0265
2
x
) for all k T
1
, T
2
[10,
eq. (8)]. In addition, MSE
q
(k) is found to be independent of the
subcarrier index k, as shall be clear from our later discussion.
Thus, in the sequel, we omit the index k in MSE
q
(k).
A. Stage 1Initial CFR Estimation
In the rst step, since [S
n
(k)[ = 1, we can obtain

H
1
from
(6) as

H
1
(k) =
1
M
1

n(
1
Y
n
(k)
S
n
(k)
=
1
M
1

n(
1
Y
n
(k) [S
n
(k)]

(7)
2
The assumption N
h
N
g
may not always be strictly correct, particularly
when CM4 is considered. The resulting ISI may slightly affect the consistency
between the related analytical and simulation results. However, as we will show
later, ISI has no signicant impairment to the effectiveness of the proposed
channel estimator in this case.
1358 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2010
for k T
1
, T
2
, where M
1
= 2 is the number of training
symbols per subband. Clearly, this is an LS estimate based on
the training sequence with a 3-dB gain in estimation accuracy
resulting from averaging two estimates (M
1
= 2) obtained
from the same subband (
1
. In this case, we have MSE
1
=
1/(M
1
SNR), where SNR is the average SNR over all sub-
carriers at the receiver.
In the second step, we apply a simple frequency-domain
smoothing operation to

H
1
and obtain

H
2
as

H
2
(k)=
h
_

H
1
(k1)+

H
1
(k+1)
_
+(12
h
)

H
1
(k) (8)
for k T
1
, T
2
, where 0 <
h
< 0.5. By doing so, the CFR
estimate on each subcarrier is smoothed using the estimates
from adjacent subcarriers such that the residual error contained
in the initial LS estimate can be reduced. Note that, when k
1, 56, 72, 127, the kth subcarrier has only one valid adjacent
subcarrier, as can be seen from Fig. 2. In this case, (8) can
accordingly be modied such that only one adjacent subcarrier
is used for smoothing.
The validity of using the aforementioned frequency-domain
smoothing technique can be justied by examining the relation-
ship between the channel-coherent bandwidth and the subcar-
rier spacing. Denote by (k) the normalized cross correlation
of H(k), i.e., (k) = EH(k + k)[H(k)]

/E[H(k)[
2
,
with k being a small integer. Then, from [10], we have
[(k)[

1 +
NT
s
NT
s
+j2k
1 +

1 +
NT
s
NT
s
+j2k
1 +

(9)
where T
s
is the sampling interval of the received signals.
Applying the actual values of , , , and (see [1, Table II])
to (9), we nd that [(k)[ = 0.99, 0.98, 0.94, and 0.84 for
CM1, CM2, CM3, and CM4, respectively, when [k[ = 1.
Since the UWB channel-coherent bandwidth is much larger
than the subcarrier spacing, the CFRs for adjacent subcarri-
ers are approximately identical [9], i.e., H(k) H(k + 1),
k 0, 1, . . . , N 2. Therefore, the use of frequency-domain
smoothing for channel estimation in this case is appropriate. It
should be pointed out that, strictly speaking,

H
2
is a biased
estimate of H in a frequency-selective fading channel, unless

h
= 0. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that

H
2
will be close
to an unbiased estimate of H if the smoothing parameter
h
is
sufciently small.
The actual choice of the smoothing parameter
h
should also
take into account the resulting MSE
2
. Let = 6 2'[4(1)
(2)], where '[X] denotes the real part of X. From (7) and (8),
we can obtain the value of
h
, which is optimal in the sense
of minimizing MSE
2
(see Appendix A for detailed derivation).
The closed-form expression for
h
is given by

opt
h
= (3 + 0.5M
1
SNR)
1
. (10)
Replacing
h
in (8) with its optimum value requires the knowl-
edge of channel statistics and SNR, which may not be available
in practice. A suboptimal yet practical solution is to evaluate
MSE
2
over the entire SNR range of interest for the four types
Fig. 3. NMSE ratio R
1,2
mse
versus smoothing parameter
h
and SNR under
various channel environments. (a) CM1. (b) CM2. (c) CM3. (d) CM4.
of UWB channels. Dening R
1,2
mse
:= MSE
1
/MSE
2
, from (27),
we have
R
1,2
mse
=
_

2
h
M
1
SNR + 6
2
h
4
h
+ 1
_
1
. (11)
Fig. 3 shows the NMSE ratio R
1,2
mse
versus
h
and SNR for
the four different types of UWB channels. The SNR range is
chosen to be 5 to 20 dB in the case of CM1 and CM2 and
5 to 9 dB in the case of CM3 and CM4 since the latter
are only applicable to lower rate transmission systems with
lower high-end operational SNRs [1]. Since a positive R
1,2
mse
(in decibels) indicates that

H
2
is more accurate than the initial
LS estimate

H
1
, we can conclude from Fig. 3 that a good
smoothing factor should satisfy 0 <
h
0.1 so that we have
R
1,2
mse
> 0 dB in all scenarios.
3
In particular, our system-level
evaluation shows that, by selecting
h
0.1, the resulting CFR
estimate is nearly unbiased in the sense that the residual bias has
an almost negligible adverse effect on system performance.
The channel estimate

H
2
obtained from the second step will
be used to process the frame header. Header processing, in
turn, leads to the second stage of channel estimation, which is
described next.
B. Stage 2Enhanced CFR Estimation
In this stage, we rst detect the OFDM symbols within the
frame header, i.e., those with indexes n T in Fig. 1, using the
channel estimate

H
2
obtained from Stage 1. Then, by using
these detected header symbols in a decision-directed manner
[13], [25], we obtain a rened CFR estimate.
To detect the frame header OFDM symbol on Subband 1, we
rst compute

S
n
(k)=Y
n
(k)/

H
2
(k), nT
1
; kT
1
, T
2
; k , T.
3
Note that the actual propagation environments of UWB may be different
from those described by CM1CM4. However, as long as the ranges of (1),
(2), and SNR are roughly available, a desirable choice of
h
can easily be
made using (11).
WANG et al.: LOW-COMPLEXITY AND EFFICIENT CHANNEL ESTIMATOR FOR MULTIBAND OFDM-UWB SYSTEMS 1359
Similarly, we compute

S
n
(k)=Y
n
(k)/

H
/
2
(k), n
/
T
/
1
; kT
1
, T
2
; k,T
where

H
/
2
(k), corresponding to its counterpart on Subband 1,
i.e.,

H
2
(k), denotes the channel estimate associated with Sub-
band 2 or 3. Recall that each S
n
(k) [also S
n
(k)] belongs to
a QPSK constellation, i.e., S
n
(k) = c[u
n
(k) +jv
n
(k)], where
c =

2/2, and u
n
(k), v
n
(k) +1, 1. Then, using (2) and
(3), we obtain the following estimators for u
n
(k) and v
n
(k):
u
n
(k) =sgn

'[

S
n
(k)+

S
n
(Nk)
. .
direct combination
+

S
n
(k)+

S
n
(Nk)
. .
direct combination
]

v
n
(k) =sgn

S
n
(k)

S
n
(Nk)
. .
direct combination
+

S
n
(k)

S
n
(Nk)
. .
direct combination
]

(12)
for k T
1
, T
2
and k / T, n T
1
, n
/
T
1
/
, and [n n
/
[ =
1, where [X] denotes the imaginary part of X.
Although effective in the moderate- or high-SNR regime,
the aforementioned detector suffers from low reliability in the
low-SNR regime. This motivates us to further improve the de-
tection performance by introducing a CFR-weighted detection
scheme. Let
Z
n
(k) =

H
2
(k)

S
n
(k) = Y
n
(k)
_

H
2
(k)
_

Z
n
(k) =

H
/
2
(k)

S
n
(k) = Y
n
(k)
_

H
/
2
(k)
_

(13)
for k T
1
, T
2
and k / T, n T
1
, and n
/
T
1
/
. Replacing

S
n
(k) with Z
n
(k) and

S
n
(k) with Z
n
(k) in (12) yields the
following detector:
u
n
(k) =sgn

'[Z
n
(k)+Z
n
(Nk)
. .
weightedcombination
+Z
n
(k)+Z
n
(Nk)
. .
weightedcombination
]

v
n
(k) =sgn

[Z
n
(k)Z
n
(Nk)
. .
weightedcombination
+Z
n
(k)Z
n
(Nk)
. .
weightedcombination
]

(14)
for k T
1
, T
2
and k / T, n T
1
, n
/
T
1
/
, and [n n
/
[ =
1. Thus, multiplying

S
n
(k) by [

H
2
(k)[
2
or

S
n
(k) by [

H
/
2
(k)[
2
in (13) yields a weighted combination of two frequency-domain
spread signals in (14) in a way similar to the maximum-
ratio-combining principle (see, for example, [11]), but with
lower complexity as no divisions are required to obtain Z
n
(k)
and Z
n
(N k). The weighting factor [

H
2
(k)[
2
is the CFR
magnitude (squared) on the kth subcarrier. The larger [

H
2
(k)[
2
is, the more reliable the detected header symbol [i.e.,

S
n
(k)]
on the kth subcarrier will be, and vice versa. Hence, compared
with the direct combination of

S
n
(k) and

S
n
(N k) in (12),
the weighted combination in (14) results in a CFR-weighted
detection scheme that is more noise resilient and reliable. We
shall demonstrate this further in Section IV-A.
Using the detected header symbols, as well as the pilots,
we now obtain a decision-directed channel estimate

H
3
, i.e.,

H
3
(k), for k T
1
, T
2
, in the third step, as

H
3
(k) =

c
M
2

nT
1
Y
n
(k) [ u
n
(k) j v
n
(k)] , k , T
1
M
2

nT
1
Y
n
(k) [S
n
(k)]

, k T.
(15)
In the fourth step, we apply the frequency-domain smoothing
operation introduced in the second step to

H
3
. The resulting
CFR estimate

H
4
is given by

H
4
(k)=
h
_

H
3
(k1)+

H
3
(k+1)
_
+(12
h
)

H
3
(k) (16)
for k T
1
, T
2
, where
h
is a smoothing factor whose value
can be determined following a procedure similar to that for
choosing
h
.
Finally, in the fth step, we obtain

H as a weighted average
of

H
2
and

H
4
as

H =

H
5
= (M
1

H
2
+M
2

H
4
)/(M
1
+M
2
). (17)
The nal CFR estimate

H is more accurate than

H
2
obtained
in the rst stage and will be used to process the payload OFDM
symbols in the current frame.
IV. MEAN-SQUARED ERROR PERFORMANCE AND
COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY
In this section, we analyze the MSE performance and compu-
tational complexity of the ve-step channel estimator proposed
in Section III [see (7), (8), (15)(17)].
A. MSE Performance Analysis
We observe from Section III-B that the actual performance
enhancement resulting from the third step depends on the CFR-
weighted detection performance. Suppose that a header sym-
bol S
n
(k) is transmitted on the kth subcarrier (k T
1
, T
2

and k / T, and n T
1
), and the corresponding received and
detected symbols are Y
n
(k) and

S
n
(k) = c[ u
n
(k) +j v
n
(k)],
respectively. Denoting by H
d
(k) and H
s
(k) the LS estimates
of the CFR on the kth subcarrier obtained by using the detected
header symbol and by assuming that the transmitted header
symbol is known at the receiver, respectively, we have
H
d
(k)=Y
n
(k)
_

S
n
(k)
_

, H
s
(k)=Y
n
(k) [S
n
(k)]

. (18)
Apparently, the NMSE of H
s
(k) is given by MSE
s
= 1/SNR.
To derive the NMSE of H
d
(k), i.e., MSE
d
, we rst need to
consider the header-detection error. Let S
n
(k) =

S
n
(k)
S
n
(k). Denote by P
e
the average bit error probability (BEP)
of the proposed CFR-weighted header OFDM symbol detector,
1360 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2010
i.e., P
e
=Pr u
n
(k)'[S
n
(k)] < 0=Pr v
n
(k)[S
n
(k)] < 0.
Then, from (6) and (18), we can obtain
MSE
d
=E
_
[H
d
(k)H(k)[
2
_
/E
0
=E
_

[H(k)S
n
(k)+V
n
(k)]
_

S
n
(k)
_

H(k)

2
_
/E
0
=E
_
[H(k)S
n
(k)V
n
(k)[
2
_
/E
0
=E
_
[S
n
(k)[
2
_
ES
n
(k)[V
n
(k)/H(k)]

E[S
n
(k)]

V
n
(k)/H(k)+1/SNR
=4P
e
2'[ES
n
(k)[V
n
(k)/H(k)]

]+1/SNR
4

P
e
+1/SNR (19)
where

P
e
is the BEP associated with an SNR that is 6 dB
higher than that of P
e
. The last approximation in (19) is
obtained with the following facts: Contrary to the conventional
assumption that S
n
(k)s and V
n
(k)s are independent, i.e.,
ES
n
(k)[V
n
(k)]

= 0, the error term 2'[ES

n
(k)
[V
n
(k)/H(k)]

] in (19) is actually able to cancel out the error

term E[S
n
(k)[
2
to some extent. Since time- and frequency-
domain spreading (with 6 dB SNR gain) are both used to obtain

S
n
(k), the residual error term E[S
n
(k)[
2
(i.e., after
cancellation) can be envisioned as being approximately
attributed to

P
e
. Although it is very difcult to rigorously
substantiate this intuitive approximation, its effectiveness has
been validated through extensive simulations in Section V.
We further show in Appendix B that P
e
is approximately
upper bounded by P
ub
e
as
P
e
P
ub
e
=
1

2
x

Q
_
10
x
20
_
e

x
2
2
2
x
dx (20)
where = 2
_
(M
1
R
1,2
mse
SNR+1)SNR
[(M
1
R
1,2
mse
+1)SNR+1]E
0
and Q() denotes the
complementary cumulative distribution function of the standard
Gaussian distribution. Denote by

P
ub
e
the counterpart of

P
e
corresponding to P
ub
e
. Let MSE
b
= 4

P
ub
e
+ 1/SNR. Clearly,
MSE
b
can be interpreted as an approximate upper bound of
MSE
d
. Fig. 4 shows the comparison between MSE
b
and MSE
s
under various channel environments. The analytically com-
puted MSE
b
curves are close to their respective MSE
s
curves
in the entire SNR region of practical interest. Thus, it can
be concluded that, when applied for channel reestimation, a
detected header OFDM symbol obtained using the proposed
CFR-weighted detector should perform similarly to a known
channel-training OFDM symbol, under all channel environ-
ments. This is also conrmed via simulations in Fig. 4, i.e.,
all the MSE
d
curves are close to their respective MSE
s
curves
in the entire SNR region of practical interest. Fig. 4 also shows
the NMSE performances of the channel estimate obtained with
the simple average detector, which is formed based on (12).
Observe that the proposed CFR-weighted detector results in
much better MSE performance.
From (19) and (20), we have MSE
b
MSE
d
approximately.
As expected, observe from Fig. 4 that all MSE
d
curves remain
tightly close to their analytical counterparts MSE
b
under all
channel environments, except in the case of CM4, where the
Fig. 4. NMSE performance comparison for channel estimates based on a
single-header OFDM symbol obtained using different methods under (a) CM1,
(b) CM2, (c) CM3, and (d) CM4. (Ana, Sim, CW, KH, and SA are abbreviations
for analytical, simulation, CFR-weighted, known header, and simple average,
respectively.)
simulated MSE
d
obviously exceeds the analytical MSE
b
, par-
ticularly in the high-SNR regime (also very slightly in CM3).
This abnormal phenomenon is due to the ISI effect, which
has not been considered in the analysis of MSE
b
but becomes
serious when CM4 is used for simulations (to obtain MSE
d
).
The ISI effect becomes more evident in the case of MSE
s
,
where ISI is the only factor that affects the consistency between
the analytical MSE
s
curve and its simulated counterpart. How-
ever, even with this exception, we observe that the difference
between the simulated MSE
d
and the analytical MSE
b
is not
signicant. We therefore use the assumption MSE
d
MSE
b
or,
equivalently,

P
e


P
ub
e
, in subsequent discussions.
An alternative way to reduce the detrimental effect of de-
tection errors in the third step of our CFR estimator is to
directly use decoded data instead of the output signal from the
detector (equalizer). As described in [4] and [5], a convolutional
channel encoder together with a ReedSolomon encoder are
employed at the transmitter such that the frame header infor-
mation at the receiver can reliably be decoded. The recovered
frame header sequence

S
n
(k), n T should be same as the
transmitted sequence S
n
(k), and thus, it can be reused as
WANG et al.: LOW-COMPLEXITY AND EFFICIENT CHANNEL ESTIMATOR FOR MULTIBAND OFDM-UWB SYSTEMS 1361
an additional channel estimation sequence. However, practical
implementation of this scheme is difcult due to the high-speed
processing requirement and the limited hardware resource in a
UWB device. Therefore, our proposed CFR-weighted detection
scheme constitutes a desirable practical solution for this step
since it is simple while almost error free.
As shown in Appendix A, the NMSE of the CFR estimation
resulting from the rst stage is given by
MSE
2
=
2
h
+
_
6
2
h
4
h
+ 1
_
/(M
1
SNR). (21)
Similarly, following the aforementioned discussion that
MSE
d
MSE
b
=4

P
ub
e
+1/SNR and, consequently, MSE
3

4

P
ub
e
+1/(M
2
SNR), we can obtain
MSE
4

2
h
+
_
6
2
h
4
h
+1
_
_
4

P
ub
e
+1/(M
2
SNR)
_
. (22)
From (17), the NMSE of the nal channel estimate

H can be
obtained as
MSE =E
_
|

H H|
2
_
/E
_
|H|
2
_
=
_
M
2
1
MSE
2
+ 2M
1
M
2
C
24
+M
2
2
MSE
4
_
(M
1
+M
2
)
2
(23)
where C
24
= E(

H
4
H)(

H
2
H)
H
/E|H|
2
, with
()
H
denoting Hermitian transpose. However, since the header
detection error and channel noise are somewhat correlated, as
was indicated in deriving MSE
d
in (19), it is difcult to obtain
a closed-form expression for C
24
. Hence, we choose to decom-
pose MSE into two conceptually independent components as
MSE = MSE
p
+ MSE
n
. The header-detection errors account
for the rst component MSE
p
, which can approximately be
obtained as MSE
p
4

P
ub
e
by assuming that all symbols for
channel estimation (including training symbols) only suffer
from detection errors with the same BEP, i.e.,

P
ub
e
. The second
component MSE
n
is purely channel noise related and can be
obtained as
MSE
n
=
M
2
1
MSE
2
+ 2M
1
M
2

C
24
+M
2
2
MSE
4
(M
1
+M
2
)
2
(24)
where MSE
4
is given by
MSE
4
=
2
h
+
_
6
2
h
4
h
+ 1
_
/(M
2
SNR) (25)
and

C
24
is a simplied form of C
24
obtained in the absence
of header-detection errors. Following the derivation of

C
24
in Appendix C, we obtain

C
24
=
h

h
. Dening R
mse
=
MSE
1
/MSE and following the aforementioned discussion, we
obtain
R
mse
=MSE
1
/(MSE
p
+MSE
n
)(M
1
+M
2
)
2
/M
1

__
4(M
1
+M
2
)
2

P
ub
e
+(M
1

h
+M
2

h
)
2
_
SNR
+M
1
_
6
2
h
4
h
+1
_
+M
2
_
6
2
h
4
h
+1
_
_
1
.
Fig. 5 shows R
mse
versus SNR under different channel en-
vironments with
h
= 0.1 and
h
= 0.05. Although not crit-
ically necessary in actual design, setting
h
<
h
is justied
Fig. 5. Analytical NMSE ratio R
mse
under various channel environments
with
h
= 0.1 and
h
= 0.05.
in principle based on the discussion about the choice of
h
in Section III-A and from comparing (21) and (22), since we
generally have MSE
3
< MSE
1
with MSE
3
4

P
ub
e
+ 1/(M
2

SNR) and MSE

1
= 1/(M
1
SNR). This is to prevent the oc-
currence of MSE
3
/MSE
4
< 0 (in decibels) in the high-SNR
regime, which is otherwise possible, as can be envisaged from
Fig. 3, particularly in the case of CM4. It can be seen from
Fig. 5 that the proposed channel estimation scheme using
18 OFDM symbols (M
1
+M
2
= 6 per subband) can achieve
about 4.15.9 dB NMSE performance gain over the conven-
tional LS solution, which uses 6 OFDM symbols (M
1
= 2 per
subband). In comparison, the ML estimator based on six OFDM
symbols (M
1
= 2 per subband) has about 10 log
10
(R/N
m
) dB
gain over the conventional LS estimator, with N
m
being the
assumed length of the channel impulse response and N
m

N
h
[17]. Thus, ideally, we can select N
m
= N
h
. Since N
h
is usually not perfectly known, a common practice is to set
N
m
= N
g
. However, since the maximumexcess delays of some
realizations of CM3 and CM4 are actually larger than those
of CM1 and CM2 and are also nonnegligibly larger than N
g
,
we assume that N
m
= N
g
= 37 for CM1/CM2 and N
m
= 64
for CM3/CM4 in the ML estimator used here. This leads to
the NMSE performance gain of ML being 4.81 and 2.43 dB
for CM1/CM2 and CM3/CM4, respectively, over conventional
LS. Therefore, we can conclude that, in terms of the NMSE
performance, the proposed scheme signicantly outperforms
the conventional LS estimator and is comparable with the more
sophisticated ML estimator. We also demonstrate this with
numerical examples in Section V.
B. Complexity Analysis
We next analyze the computational complexity of the pro-
posed scheme. Table I lists the number of real multiplications
and additions required for performing channel estimation on a
subband with various estimators. Although the proposed CFR
estimator requires more OFDM symbols than the ML estimator,
its advantage of implementation ease is evident. We exploit the
nite alphabet property of QPSK to save computations. For
example, the term (1/M
1
)

n(
1
Y
n
(k)[S
n
(k)]

in (7) can be
1362 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2010
TABLE I
REQUIRED COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY FOR CFR ESTIMATION PER SUBBAND IN A FRAME
computed with two real multiplications and six real additions
for each k T
1
, T
2
. Furthermore, given the properly se-
lected smoothing parameters
h
and
h
, one may always nd
integers
1
and
2
, such that
1

h
= 1 and
2

h
= 1. Based
on this arrangement, the related multiplications in Steps 2
and 4 in the proposed method can simply be implemented by
logic shifters. The scale factors
1
and
2
can be incorporated
into the multiplication operations required in Steps 1 and 3,
respectively. Steps 2 and 4 each require 2R real multiplications
and 4R real additions (per subband). We assume that the ML
estimator can be implemented by the cascade of two N-point
DFT operations,
4
weighted by an N
m
N
m
matrix [19], where
the DFT is split-radix based requiring N log
2
N 3N + 4 real
multiplications and 3N log
2
N 3N + 4 real additions
5
[28].
As shown in Table I, the LS estimator given by (7) requires
2R real multiplications and 6R real additions (per subband).
Compared with the conventional LS estimator, while the pro-
posed scheme requires three times more real multiplications
and about ve times more real additions, the ML estimator
requires about 28 (when N
m
= 37) or 77 (when N
m
= 64)
times more real multiplications and 15 (when N
m
= 37) or
31 (when N
m
= 64) times more real additions. The drastically
increased computational complexity of the ML scheme makes
it prohibitive in practice.
We want to point out that the complexity of the ML scheme
given in Table I is based on the assumption that a matrix of
size N
m
N
m
is prestored. This matrix contains the coef-
cients required for performing ML estimation, which depend
on the parameter N
m
. Since N
m
may vary with the actual
channel environment and one cannot afford to prestore several
different ML matrices with a limited hardware resource, the
N
m
-dependent property of the ML matrix is considered as a
serious drawback of the ML-based channel estimation scheme
4
In fact, due to the rigid timing requirement in OFDM-UWB processing, the
ML estimator may not be able to share the use of a DFT processor with normal
OFDM symbol processing. Thus, practical implementation of the ML estimator
may require an additional DFT processor with dramatically increased use of
hardware resources. In other words, our assumption with the ML estimator
here may result in serious underestimation of its implementation complexity
in practice.
5
The computational complexity of a DFT with only a subset of input or
output points can be reduced by using FFT pruning or transform decomposition
[19]. However, careful examination of various algorithms with reference to
the discussion in [29] shows that the split-radix-based solution has the lowest
complexity for the given values of N and N
m
in our case.
for implementation of OFDM systems in practice. In fact, this
problem becomes even worse in the case of OFDM-UWB.
Suppose that only a single matrix that amounts to 2N
2
m
real
data elements requires to be stored in memory. Assuming that
each real data is 8-bit long and three logic gates are required
to implement one bit memory, about 66K (N
m
= 37) to 197K
(N
m
= 64) logic gates may be required to store one ML matrix.
This is prohibitive for implementation in a handheld UWB
device as this amounts to a signicant portion of the logic
gates available for implementing the whole digital portion of
the UWB physical layer [1]. One way to circumvent this is to
compute the ML matrix in real time. However, this calculation
involves matrix inversion, which is of high complexity and is
practically infeasible.
In comparison, our proposed scheme requires no matrix
storage and maintains a similar order of computational com-
plexity as the simple LS estimator, which makes it feasible and
attractive for practical implementation.
V. SIMULATION RESULTS
In the simulations, we consider an OFDM-UWB system with
a data rate of 53.3 Mb/s. The selection of the lowest data
rate specied in [4], as exemplied here, is to illustrate the
effectiveness of the proposed techniques under very low SNR
conditions. In this case, the frame payload is encoded using
a convolutional encoder with rate 1/3 and constraint length 7,
modulated with QPSK, and spread in time and frequency
domains in a way similar to that described in Section II-A to
process the frame header. We assume that TFC = 1 and that
the frame payload is 1024 octets long with perfect timing and
frequency synchronization. We use the UWB channel models
CM1, CM2, CM3, and CM4, each of which has 100 realizations
[1]. Following the convention of OFDM-UWB system design,
the worst ten realizations of each channel model are ignored for
all the MSE- and frame-error-rate (FER)-related performance
evaluation [1], [10]. This is due to the fact that the maxi-
mum excess delays of some channel realizations, particularly
those of CM3 and CM4, are nonnegligibly longer than N
g
, as
mentioned in Section IV-A. In addition, we set
h
= 0.1 and

h
= 0.05.
Fig. 6 shows the NMSE performance for different channel-
estimation schemes. As expected, the proposed channel
WANG et al.: LOW-COMPLEXITY AND EFFICIENT CHANNEL ESTIMATOR FOR MULTIBAND OFDM-UWB SYSTEMS 1363
Fig. 6. NMSE performance comparison in terms of NMSE ratio R
mse
versus SNR for various channel estimation methods under (a) CM1, (b) CM2,
(c) CM3, and (d) CM4. (Sim, Ana, and PD are abbreviations for simulation,
analytical and proposed, respectively.)
estimator using 18 OFDM symbols (M
1
+M
2
= 6 per sub-
band) performs much better than the conventional LS estimator
using six OFDM symbols (M
1
= 2 per subband), with about
a 3.55.9-dB NMSE performance gain. Observe that the sim-
ulated performance of the proposed scheme closely follows
the analytical result under CM1/CM2. With CM3/CM4, on the
other hand, a deviation between the simulation and analytical
results is observed. This is because the multipath delay spreads
of most of the CM3 and CM4 realizations are quite large, and
therefore, a certain amount of ISI exists even after the worst
10% channel realizations are dropped. Nevertheless, it should
be pointed out that, even without using any specic remedy for
residual ISI, the resulting system performance is still accept-
able, as we shall see later in the FER performance evaluation
of the overall system. Fig. 6 also shows the performance of
the ML estimator with N
m
= 37 and N
m
= 64 for CM1/CM2
and CM3/CM4, respectively. Clearly, the proposed scheme
using 18 OFDM symbols outperforms the ML estimator using
six OFDM symbols (M
1
= 2 per subband) for CM3/CM4,
whereas the proposed scheme underperforms the ML estimator
for CM1/CM2 only in the very low SNR regime and outper-
forms it otherwise.
The FER performance for the four different types of UWB
channels are shown in Fig. 7. Observe that the proposed channel
estimator performs slightly worse than ML for CM1/CM2 and
slightly better than ML for CM3/CM4, while outperforming the
LS estimator by about 1.01.2 dB gain (at FER = 0.08the
performance comparison point specied in [4]) and with much
reduced loss (about 2 dB) from the case of perfect channel
knowledge, under all channel conditions.
It is interesting to note that the NMSE performances of the
proposed estimator and the ML estimator in Fig. 6 do not seem
to correlate well with the FERperformance in Fig. 7. On the one
hand, although the proposed estimator and the ML estimator
exhibit a signicant difference in their NMSE performance for
CM3/CM4 (about 1.5 dB at SNR = 2 dB), the difference in
their FER performance is not correspondingly obvious (about
Fig. 7. FER performance comparison for various channel-estimation methods
under (a) CM1 and CM2 and (b) CM3 and CM4.
0.10.2 dB). On the other hand, when the difference in the
NMSE performance of these estimators for CM1/CM2 is not
signicant (about 0.5 dB at SNR = 2 dB), the difference in
their FER performance is relatively obvious (about 0.4 dB).
This performance mismatch arises from two aspects: First, the
existence of serious ISI in the received OFDM symbols signif-
icantly contributes to the FER performance for CM3/CM4. It
should be emphasized that ISI results in not only less accurate
channel estimation but also substantial distortion of data (pay-
load) OFDM symbols, both of which result in data-detection
errors and, thus, frame errors. Hence, even in the low-SNR
regime, the ISI-caused data corruption offsets, to some extent,
the FER benets of using the proposed channel estimator that
has signicantly better NMSE performance for CM3/CM4 than
the ML estimator.
Second, we recall that, regardless of the ISI effect, the MSE
of the proposed channel estimator is related to both channel
noise and header-detection errors under low-SNR conditions,
whereas the MSE of the ML estimator is wholly attributed
to channel noise. From the discussion in Section IV-A, one
can easily envisage that the MSE that exclusively results from
channel noise and header-detection errors may have a different
1364 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 3, MARCH 2010
impact on the FER performance. In other words, since com-
puting the MSE from header-detection errors involves an error-
cancellation process, as described in Section IV-A, there may
exist a small amount of MSE, which is initially hidden in the
channel estimates obtained using detected header symbols but
later reveals its impact on detected data symbols as an extra
FER performance loss. Thus, the effective NMSE performance
of the proposed estimator will be slightly worse than that ob-
served in Fig. 6 in the low-SNR regime. Equivalently speaking,
while doing MSE and FER behavior mapping with Figs. 6 and
7, one may take from Fig. 6 an increased difference in the
NMSE performance of two estimators for CM1/CM2 and a
decreased difference for CM3/CM4. To corroborate this reason-
ing via simulations, we constructed a virtual channel estimator,
which is exactly the same as the proposed estimator, except that
it assumes zero-error header detection with increased level of
the channel noise in the received header symbols to maintain
the same amount of MSE as that of the proposed estimator.
As shown in Fig. 7, the virtual estimator results in an FER
performance that is slightly better than that of the proposed
estimator under all channel conditions. As expected, the previ-
ously observed MSE/FER mismatch has largely disappeared in
this case.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have proposed a novel channel-estimation
scheme for MB-OFDM UWB systems. The solution has been
veried to be effective and efcient in terms of performance and
implementation complexity. The channel estimator is LS based
but enhanced with a multistage procedure using a simplied
CFR-weighted decision-directed process, as well as frequency-
domain smoothing. Both analytical and numerical results show
that the proposed scheme achieves performance similar to that
of the more sophisticated but practically infeasible ML estima-
tor, and it outperforms the conventional LS estimator with about
3.55.9 dB gain in terms of NMSE performance and about a
1-dB gain in terms of FER performance under various highly
noisy multipath channel environments.
APPENDIX A
FINDING THE OPTIMAL
h
Assuming that the CFR, transmitted signal, and additive
white Gaussian noise are independent of each other, from (6)
and (7), we have
E
_

H
1
(k)

2
_
=E
0
+E
0
/(M
1
SNR)
E
_

H
1
(k) [H(k)]

_
=E
_
H(k)
_

H
1
(k)
_

_
= E
0
E
_

H
1
(k 1) [H(k)]

_
=E
_
H(k)
_

H
1
(k 1)
_

_
=(1)E
0
EH(k
k
) [H(k)]

=E
_

H
1
(k
k
)
_

H
1
(k)
_

_
=(
k
)E
0
,
k
1, 2
(26)
for k 0, 1, . . . , N 1. Using (26) and the property that
(
k
) = [(
k
)]

[10], we can derive MSE

2
from (7) and
(8) as
MSE
2
=E
_

H
2
(k) H(k)

2
_
/E
0
=
2
h
+
_
6
2
h
4
h
+ 1
_
/(M
1
SNR). (27)
Next, we minimize MSE
2
with respect to
h
. Setting to zero
the gradient of MSE
2
with respect to
h
, it is straightforward
to obtain (10).
APPENDIX B
DERIVATION OF P
ub
e
In this Appendix, we derive the approximate upper bound
of the average BEP of the proposed CFR-weighted detec-
tor, i.e., P
ub
e
. After the rst stage of channel estimation, the
channel estimate

H
2
(k), which is given by (8), can be ex-
pressed as

H
2
(k) = H(k) +

W(k) (28)
where the estimation error term

W(k) is a complex Gaussian
random variable with mean zero and variance
2
= E
0
/(M
1

R
1,2
mse
SNR). We note that

W(k) is uncorrelated with H(k)
and S
n
(k) but is correlated with

H
2
(k). Referring to the discus-
sion in [26, Sec. II-B], we can decompose

W(k) into two un-
correlated terms as

W(k) =

W(k) +

W(k) =

H
2
(k)
2
/E
0
+

W(k). Here,

W(k) is a complex Gaussian random variable
with mean zero and variance
2
= E
0

2
/(E
0
+
2
). Thus,
(28) can be rewritten as
H(k) = (1
2
/E
0
)

H
2
(k)

W(k). (29)
From (3), (6), (13), and (29), we have
Z
n
(k)+Z
n
(Nk)
= (1
2
/E
0
)

H
2
(k)

2
S
n
(k)
+ (1
2
/E
0
)

H
2
(Nk)

2
[S
n
(k)]

H
2
(k)S
n
(k)

W(k)

H
2
(Nk) [S
n
(k)]

W(Nk)
+

H
2
(k)V
n
(k)+

H
2
(Nk)V
n
(Nk)
for k T
1
and k / T, and n T
1
. Similarly, by making use
of (2), we have
Z
n
(k)+Z
n
(Nk)
= (1
2
/E
0
)

H
/
2
(k)

2
S
n
(k)
+ (1
2
/E
0
)

H
/
2
(Nk)

2
[S
n
(k)]

H
/
2
(k)S
n
(k)

W
/
(k)

H
/
2
(Nk) [S
n
(k)]

W
/
(Nk)
+

H
/
2
(k)V
n
(k)+

H
/
2
(Nk)V
n
(Nk)
for k T
1
and k / T, and n
/
T
1
/
, where

W
/
(k) denotes the
estimation error associated with either Subband 2 or Subband 3.
Let X(k)=Z
n
(k)+Z
n
(Nk)+Z
n
(k)+Z
n
(Nk) and

G(k)=[

H
2
(k)[
2
+[

H
2
(Nk)[
2
+[

H
/
2
(k)[
2
+[

H
/
2
(N k)[
2
.
WANG et al.: LOW-COMPLEXITY AND EFFICIENT CHANNEL ESTIMATOR FOR MULTIBAND OFDM-UWB SYSTEMS 1365
Obviously, X(k) is Gaussian distributed for given S
n
(k),

H
2
(k),

H
2
(Nk),

H
/
2
(k), and

H
/
2
(Nk). Since [S
n
(k)[
2
=1,
EV
n
(k)=0, EV
n
(k)=0, E[V
n
(k)]
2
=0, E[V
n
(k)]
2
=
0, E

W(k) = 0, E

W
/
(k) = 0, E[

W(k)]
2
= 0, and
E[

W
/
(k)]
2
= 0, it is straightforward to show that the condi-
tional mean and variance of '[X(k)] are given by E'[X(k)][
S
n
(k),

H
2
(k),

H
2
(N k),

H
/
2
(k),

H
/
2
(N k) = (1
2
/
E
0
)

G(k)'[S
n
(k)] and Var'[X(k)][S
n
(k),

H
2
(k),

H
2
(N
k),

H
/
2
(k),

H
/
2
(N k) = 0.5(
2
+
2
)

G(k), respectively.
Therefore, we get [27, Sec. V-B]
Pr
_
'[X(k)] < 0['[S
n
(k)] = c,

H
2
(k),

H
2
(N k),

H
/
2
(k),

H
/
2
(N k)
_
= Q

(1
2
/E
0
)
2
G(k)

2
+
2

Q
_
_
G(k)

2
+
2
_
(30)
where G(k) = [H(k)[
2
+[H(N k)[
2
+[H
/
(k)[
2
+[H
/
(N
k)[
2
, and H
/
(k) denotes the CFR associated with either
Subband 2 or Subband 3. The approximation in (30) follows
from (29) since

H
2
(k) H(k)/(1
2
/E
0
) and

H
/
2
(k)
H
/
(k)/(1
2
/E
0
).
From Section II-B, one can nd that [H(k)[ corresponds to
the shadowing factor X and, thus, is lognormal distributed,
i.e., 20 log
10
[H(k)[ ^(0,
2
x
). Since [H(k)[ and [H(N
k)[ are not independent, Pr'[X(k)] < 0['[S
n
(k)] = c is
upper bounded under the assumption that [H(k)[ = [H(N
k)[ = [H
/
(k)[ = [H
/
(N k)[ (without frequency or time
diversity), i.e.,
Pr u
n
(k) = 1['[S
n
(k)] = c
= Pr '[X(k)] < 0['[S
n
(k)] = c

2
x

Q
_
10
x
20
_
e

x
2
2
2
x
dx (31)
where
=

4
(
2
+
2
= 2

_
_
M
1
R
1,2
mse
SNR + 1
_
SNR
__
M
1
R
1,2
mse
+ 1
_
SNR + 1
_
E
0
.
Assuming that '[S
n
(k)] is equiprobably c, we have
Pr u
n
(k)'[S
n
(k)] <0 = Pr u
n
(k)=1 ['[S
n
(k)] =c
= Pr u
n
(k)=1 ['[S
n
(k)] =c .
A similar procedure can be applied to derive
Pr v
n
(k)[S
n
(k)] < 0, and we have
P
e
= Pr u
n
(k)'[S
n
(k)] < 0 = Pr v
n
(k)[S
n
(k)] < 0
which is approximately upper bounded by P
ub
e
, as shown
in (20).
APPENDIX C
DERIVATION OF

C
24
Following the denition of C
24
in Section IV-A, we have
C
24
=E
_
(

H
4
H)(

H
2
H)
H
_
/E
_
|H|
2
_
=E
__

H
4
(k) H(k)
_ _

H
2
(k) H(k)
_

_
/E
0
(32)
for k T
1
, T
2
. From (7) and (8), we have

H
2
(k)H(k)=
h
[H(k1)+H(k+1)]2
h
H(k)+ (33)
k T
1
, T
2
, where is a zero-mean complex Gaussian ran-
dom variable comprising the channel noise from the rst stage
of channel estimation. From (16), it follows that

H
4
(k) H(k) =
h
_

H
3
(k 1) +

H
3
(k + 1)
_
+(1 2
h
)

H
3
(k) H(k), k T
1
, T
2
. (34)
Next, neglecting the header-detection errors and referring to
(26), we obtain
E
_

H
3
(k
k
) [H(k)]

_
=
_
E
0
,
k
=0
(
k
)E
0
,
k
1, 2.
(35)
Noting that EH(k) = 0 and E

H
3
(k
k
) = 0 for

k
0, 1, 2 and applying (33)(35) to (32), we obtain

C
24
=

h
, which is the simplied form of C
24
.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Associate Editor and the
anonymous reviewers, whose valuable comments and sugges-
tions improved the presentation of this paper.
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Zhongjun Wang (M02SM09) received the
B.Eng. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineer-
ing from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai,
China, in 1987 and 1990, respectively, and the
M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineer-
ing from the National University of Singapore,
Singapore, in 1996 and 2009, respectively.
From 1990 to 1994, he was a Research Staff
Member with Shanghai Jiao Tong University. From
1996 to 2004, he was a member of Technical Staff
with the Institute of Microelectronics, Singapore.
From 2004 to 2008, he was a Principal Engineer with Oki Techno Centre
Singapore. Since 2008, he has been a Senior Technical Consultant with
Wipro Techno Centre Singapore. His research interests include wireless
communications, digital signal processing, and very-large-scale integration
implementation.
Yan Xin (S00M03) received the B.E. degree in
electronics engineering from Beijing University of
Technology, Beijing, China, in 1992 and the M.Sc.
degree in mathematics, the M.Sc. degree in elec-
trical engineering, and the Ph.D. degree in electri-
cal engineering from the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, in 1998, 2000, and 2003, respectively.
From 2004 to 2008, he was an Assistant Pro-
fessor with the Department of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering, National University of Singapore,
Singapore. He is now a Research Staff Member with
NEC Laboratories America Inc., Princeton, NJ. His current research interests
include multiple-inputmultiple-output communications, network information
theory, and cognitive radio.
Dr. Xin was the corecipient of the 2004 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in
wireless communications.
George Mathew (M01SM08) received the
M.Sc.(Eng.) and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and
communication engineering from the Indian Institute
of Science, Bangalore, India, in 1989 and 1994,
respectively.
From 1994 to 1996, he held postdoctoral appoint-
ments with the Indian Institute of Science and the
National University of Singapore, Singapore. From
1996 to 2003, he was with the Coding and Signal
Processing Department, Data Storage Institute,
Singapore. From 2002 to 2006, he was an Assis-
tant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineer-
ing, National University of Singapore. During 20062007, he was a Senior
Engineer with the Advanced Technology Division, Hitachi Global Storage
Technology Inc., San Jose, CA. Since 2007, he has been a Principal Engineer
with the Read Channel Architecture Division, LSI Corporation, Milpitas, CA.
His main research interests include signal processing for data storage and
communications. His focus includes channel modeling and characterization,
equalization, synchronization, detection, reduced-complexity algorithms, and
the development of drive-friendly channel features for characterization and
optimization.
Xiaodong Wang (S98M98SM04F08) re-
ceived the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
He is a Professor of electrical engineering with
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia
University, New York, NY. His research interests
include the general areas of computing, signal pro-
cessing, and communications. He has extensively
published in these areas, including a recent book
entitled Wireless Communication Systems: Advanced
Techniques for Signal Reception (Prentice-Hall,
2003). His current research interests include wireless communications, statisti-
cal signal processing, and genomic signal processing.
Dr. Wang has served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON COMMUNICATIONS, the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMU-
NICATIONS, the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, and the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION THEORY. He was the recipient of
the 1999 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the 2001 IEEE
Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award.