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4658 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2010
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considerable diversity gain with both time and frequency offsets and
applies to frequency-selective fading channels.
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Robust MC-CDMA Channel Tracking for Fast
Time-Varying Multipath Fading Channel
Chang-Yi Yang and Bor-Sen Chen, Fellow, IEEE
AbstractAn unscented Kalman filter (UKF)-based channel-tracking
method is proposed for a fast time-varying multipath fading channel in a
multicarrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA) system. The mo-
bile radio channel is modeled as an autoregressive (AR) random process.
The parameters of the AR process and the channel gain are simultaneously
estimated by the proposed method. One-step-ahead prediction can also be
obtained during channel estimation. It is useful for the decision-directed
channel-tracking design, particularly in the fast-fading channel. Mean-
while, the estimated parameters can enhance the minimum mean-square
error (MMSE) equalizer for symbol detection. The simulation results show
that the enhanced equalizer based on the proposed estimation algorithm
performs much better than that based on the conventional channel estima-
tors in symbol error rate.
Index TermsAutoregressive (AR) random process, decision-directed
channel-tracking design, minimum mean-square error (MMSE) equal-
izer, multicarrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA), unscented
Kalman filter (UKF).
I. I NTRODUCTION
Multicarrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) is a new
communication technique that integrates the merits of both orthogonal
frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and code-division multiple-
access (CDMA) schemes. It can be robust against the intersymbol
interference (ISI), multiuser interference, and multipath fading [1].
To support high-bit-rate links in the future, the MC-CDMA system
has been considered as one of the possible candidates for the next
generation of wireless communications.
The MC-CDMA system divides the available bandwidth into a
large number of narrow subchannels and spreads each data symbol
in the frequency domain by transmitting all the chips of a spread
symbol at the same time but in different orthogonal subchannels [2],
[3]. One of the properties of multicarrier transmission is that the
Manuscript received March 25, 2010; revised July 19, 2010; accepted
August 23, 2010. Date of publication September 27, 2010; date of current
version November 12, 2010. The review of this paper was coordinated by
Prof. J. Chun.
C.-Y. Yang is with the Department of Computer Science and Information
Engineering, National Penghu University of Science and Technology, Penghu
88046, Taiwan (e-mail: cyyang@npu.edu.tw).
B.-S. Chen is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Tsing-
Hua University, Hsin-chu 300, Taiwan (e-mail: bschen@moti.ee.nthu.edu.tw).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TVT.2010.2079962
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2010
Fig. 1. Block diagram of the MC-CDMA transmitter.
channel gain of each subchannel is different from the other. The inner
product of different spreading codes will no longer be zero since the
MC-CDMA systems spread transmitted symbols in a nonflat-fading
channel. This leads to the loss of orthogonality between different
users. The multiple-access interference (MAI) is introduced, and the
performance will be severely degraded in this case. To preserve the
orthogonality between different users, the channel impairment should
be precisely estimated and efficiently equalized. Different research
approaches have been adopted for channel estimation and tracking.
The pilot-symbol-aided channel-estimation methods in both the time
and frequency domains have been proposed [4]. A channel-sounding
approach is employed in which a train of pulses is periodically
transmitted [5]. A multiple-channel model, which includes several
possible channel models based on the different ranges of Doppler
frequencies (or mobile velocities), is constructed to treat the time-
varying fading channel [6]. In addition, a decision-directed channel
estimation in the frequency domain using a Kalman-based filter has
been proposed [1]. It requires no overhead symbols. However, the
decision-directed scheme has a delay problem, which the current
data detection must adopt the former channel-estimation result. This
will lead to a deterioration of the detection performance in a fast-
fading channel because the previous channel is not suitable for the
current data detection. Therefore, an accurate prediction is necessary
for the decision-directed channel-tracking algorithm to improve the
performance.
A time-varying velocity of the mobile station communicated in
the MC-CDMA system is considered in this paper. The spectral
characteristics of the communication channel can be approximated as
an autoregressive (AR) process with a white Gaussian process input
[7]. The parameters of the AR process and the variance of the input
process are determined by the velocity of the mobile station. Since the
velocity is time varying and unavailable for a handset in the realistic
application, a nonlinear state equation can be used to describe the
MC-CDMA system. The extended Kalman filter (EKF) is suitable for
nonlinear estimation. However, it is only the first-order approximation
to the nonlinear estimation and needs the computation of Jacobians to
linearize the process and measurement equations [8]. A new estimation
method called unscented Kalman filter (UKF) has been widely and
recently used in several nonlinear systems [9], [10]. It does not require
the computation of Jacobians and can be accurate to the third-order
4659
approximation for process and measurement noises that are Gaussian
distributed.
The motivation of this paper is to present a decision-directed
channel-estimation algorithm based on the UKF. The proposed method
cannot only simultaneously obtain the channel gain and dynamics
of the channel but also get a one-step-ahead prediction during the
prediction stage to overcome the delay problem of the decision-
directed scheme. A minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) equalizer
is designed for signal detection based on the one-step-ahead predic-
tion. The error covariance of channel estimation can be employed
as a design factor to enhance the MMSE equalizer. Thus, the en-
hanced MMSE equalizer in consideration of the estimation error will
be more robust to the fast-fading channel. The simulation results
demonstrate the improvements of the proposed method over other
methods.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the MC-CDMA
system is described. The UKF-based decision-directed channel-
tracking scheme and the enhanced MMSE equalization are introduced
for channel estimation in Section III. The computer simulations
of the adaptive MC-CDMA detector are presented and compared
in Section IV. The conclusions are summarized in Section V. In
what follows, AT denotes the transpose of A, and AH denotes the
Hermitian of A.
II. M ULTICARRIER C ODE -D IVISION M ULTIPLE ACCESS
C OMMUNICATION S YSTEM
The models of the transmitter and receiver in an MC-CDMA system
with Ns subchannels are described in this section. It is supposed
that Nu users are simultaneously transmitting in the system. The
nth multicarrier block symbol (duration T ) for user j is formed by
taking symbols d1j (n), . . . , d
j (n) in parallel, which are spread by
the users spreading code cj with length N . Thus, the spread
symbols are placed into Ns = N available subchannels. The block
diagram of the MC-CDMA transmitter is shown in Fig. 1. In the
rest of this paper, for simplicity of notation, we concentrate only
on the case where each user transmits one symbol ( = 1) in each
MC-CDMA block symbol. The transmitted symbol is simply repre-
sented as dj (n) for user j. Therefore, the total number of subchan-
nels is Ns = N .
4660 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2010

Fig. 2. Signal-flow diagram of UKF-based decision-directed channel-tracking scheme.

The WalshHadamard spread code cj for user j with length ever, channel variation during the successive symbol intervals is
N is allowed.
The received samples are demodulated by taking N -point DFT and
cj = [cj (0) cj (1) ... cj (N 1)]T (1) can be represented as

Yn (m) =DF T {yn (k)} = Sn (m)Hn (m)+Vn (m)

where cj (n) {(1/ N ), (1/ N )}, and

Nu
 = cj (m)dj (n)Hn (m)+Vn (m), m = 0, . . . ,N 1
1, if i = j
cTi cj = (2) j=1
0, otherwise.
(6)
Therefore, the nth symbols with spread sequence of all Nu users where
transmitted on the mth subchannel can be written as

N 1
j2lm 
N 1
j2mk

Nu Hn (m) = hn (l)e N Vn (m) = vn (k)e N

Sn (m) = cj (m)dj (n), m = 0, 1, . . . , N 1. (3) l=0 l=0

j=1
Hn (m) is the channel coefficients of the mth subcarrier at the nth
MC-CDMA block symbol in the frequency domain, and Vn (m)
The signal Sn (m) is then translated by the multicarrier modulation is the frequency-domain noise. The covariance of Vn (m) can be
(i.e., IDFT), and the OFDM symbol sn (k) is produced as follows (see expressed as
Fig. 1):  
QVn (m) = E Vn (m)VnH (m) = N v2 . (7)
1 
N 1
j2mk
sn (k) = Sn (m)e N , k = 0, 1, . . . , N 1. (4) The block diagram of the MC-CDMA receiver is illustrated
N m=0 in Fig. 2.

A guard interval is inserted between successive OFDM symbols to
avoid the ISI effects by using a cyclic prefix technique [11].
In the downlink case, all users transmitting signals are synchronous
and experience the same multipath Rayleigh-fading channel. After
removing the guard interval, the received signal of the nth MC-CDMA
symbol is given by

L1
yn (k) = sn (k l)hn (k, l) + vn (k), k = 0, 1, . . . , N 1
l=0
(5)
where hn (k, l) and vn (k) denote the lth path sampling of the com-
plex time-varying fading channel with length L and the additive
noise at the kth instant of the nth MC-CDMA block symbol, re-
spectively. vn (k) is assumed to be white Gaussian with zero mean
and variance v2 . For a high-data-rate transmission, it is reason-
ably assumed that the channel is time invariant during one MC-
CDMA block symbol interval T [1], i.e., hn (0, l) = hn (1, l) = = fined as
hn (N 1, l) for l = 0, 1, . . . , L 1. The index k of hn (k, l) would
be ignored in this case and can be simply rewritten as hn (l). How-
III. ROBUST U NSCENTED K ALMAN F ILTER C HANNEL T RACKING
A. Subcarrier Channel Estimation
Although the Jakes model is often utilized for the fading channel
estimation, it is not easy to use this model to estimate channel
variation. A higher order AR process can match the spectral
characteristics of the Rayleigh-fading channel [7]. Here, we focus on
the second-order AR model due to its simplicity and accuracy. The lth
path of the channel impulse response at the nth MC-CDMA symbol
can be modeled by an AR(2) process
hn (l) = a1,n1 hn1 (l) + a2,n1 hn2 (l) + wn (l)
l = 0, 1, . . . , L 1 (8)
where wn (l) is a complex zero-mean white Gaussian process. The
parameters a1,n and a2,n are determined by the Doppler frequency
shift due to the velocity change of the mobile station. They are de-
a1,n = 2rd cos(2fD,n T ), a2,n = rd2 (9)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2010 4661

where fD,n is the maximum Doppler frequency shift in the nth parameters related to dn in the UKF algorithm should be regenerated
symbol period, and rd is the pole radius that corresponds to the from dn
steepness of the peaks of the power spectrum [7]. The radius is chosen
to be very close to 1 to model the spectral peaks at the maximum 
Nu

Sn (m) = cj (m)dj (n). (17)

Doppler frequency of the fading channel.
j=1
The channel-estimation method is performed in the frequency do-
main. Hence, the time-domain AR process of Rayleigh-fading channel The state-space model for the decision-directed channel tracking of
must be transformed to a frequency-domain AR process. Taking the the mth subchannel is rewritten as
N -point DFT of hn (l), we have
Xn = F (Xn1 ) + Wn (18)

N 1
j2lm 
L1
j2lm
Hn (m) = hn (l)e N = hn (l)e N Yn = CH
n Xn + Vn (19)
l=0 l=0
where Wn and Vn are assumed to have zero mean, and
= a1,n1 Hn1 (m) + a2,n1 Hn2 (m) + Wn (m)
Cn (m) = [ 0 Sn (m) 0 ]H
 
m = 0, 1, . . . , N 1 (10) Q1 = E Wn Wn H

 
where Q2 = E |Vn |2 . (20)


L1
j2lm
The fundamental component of the filter is the unscented trans-
Wn (m) = wn (l)e N . formation. It provides a method for calculating the statistics of a
l=0 random variable, which undergoes a nonlinear transformation [12].
This transformation uses a set of approximately weighted points
Since the velocity of the mobile station is time varying and to parameterize the mean and covariance information while per-
unavailable, the parameter a1,n is also time varying. For the best mitting the direct propagation of that information through a set of
channel estimation, one way is to jointly estimate Hn (m) and a1,n . nonlinear equations. Consider an M -dimensional random vector X
However, the joint estimation is nonlinear from (10) because of through a nonlinear function F to generate an J-dimensional random
coupling. It is not easy for any linear estimation method to esti- variable z
mate the state. The UKF [12] is adopted in this paper to get a
more accurate result than EKF for nonlinear parameter-estimation z = F (X). (21)
problem.
From (6) and (10), the channel model can be described by the It is assumed that X has the mean X and covariance matrix PX .
following state-space equations: The requirement is to compute z = E{z} and PZ = E{(z z)(z
z)T }. Based on the unscented transformation [12], a set of 2M + 1
sigma points {i }2M
i=0 are chosen so that the sample mean and sample
Xn (m) = F (Xn1 (m)) + Wn (m) (11)
covariance are X and PX , respectively.
Yn (m) = CH
n (m)Xn (m) + Vn (m) (12)
0 =X
where  
i =X + (M +)PX , i = 1, 2, . . . , M
i
Xn (m) = [a1,n Hn (m) Hn1 (m)]T (13)  
F(Xn (m)) = [a1,n a1,n Hn (m)+a2,n Hn1 (m) Hn (m)] T
(14) i =X (M +)PX , i = M + 1, M + 2, . . . , 2M
i

Cn (m) = [0 Sn (m) 0]H (15) (u)

R0 =
Wn (m) = [wa,n Wn (m) 0] (16) M +
(t)
wa,n is assigned to simulate the variation of velocity as a random R0 = +(12 +)
M +
walk, and F is a nonlinear function of the state Xn (m). The index m
is omitted in the following computation since the procedure of UKF (u) (t)
Ri =Ri = , i = 1, 2, . . . , 2M (22)
computation is the same for all subchannels. 2(M +)

where = 2 (M + ) M , ( (M + )PX )i is the ith column of
B. Decision-Directed Channel Tracking Based on UKF (u) (t)
the matrix square root of (M + )PX , and Ri and Ri are the
Because the transmitted signal is unknown for the receiver in the weights for mean and variance, respectively.  0 is chosen to guar-
tracking mode, the detected data, instead of the transmitted signal, antee positive semidefiniteness of Pz . is a small positive constant de-
are fed to the UKF channel estimator for channel identification. This termining the spread of the sigma points around the mean value of X.
is the so-called decision-directed channel tracking. The occupancy of is a nonnegative weighting parameter, which incorporates on the
available bandwidth due to the transmission of the overhead symbol distribution of X.
can be avoided in this method. The data-flow diagram of the proposed The 2M + 1 sigma points are then propagated through the nonlinear
decision-directed channel tracking is shown as Fig. 2. The detected transformations as
symbol dn is used to identify the channel in the tracking mode. (Since
the MMSE data-detection scheme is introduced in Section III-C, zi = F (i ), i = 0, 1, . . . , 2M. (23)
it is assumed that dn is available in this section.) Therefore, the
4662 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2010

TABLE I TABLE II
S UMMARY OF THE UKF A LGORITHM P OWER D ELAY P ROFILE IN THE T YPICAL U RBAN A REA

The design objective of the MMSE equalizer is to find an optimal

n = diag{n (0), n (1), . . . , n (N 1)} based on the channel
prediction such that


2 
on (m) = arg min E

Sn (m) n (m)Yn (m)
. (26)

n (m)

The optimal MMSE equalization for (26) with the channel predic-
tion is [6]

H
Hn|n1 (m)
on (m) =

(27)

Hn|n1 (m)
2 + n|n1 (m) + QVn (m)/s2

where s2 = E{|Sn (m)|2 }, the channel prediction Hn|n1 (m) is

obtained from Xn|n1 in Table I, and the covariance of channel pre-
diction error n|n1 (m) = E{|Hn|n1 (m)|2 } = Pn|n1,(2,2) (m) is
the element at the second row and second column of Pn|n1 (m)
Finally, z and Pz are obtained as follows: in Table I. Finally, the output of the MMSE equalizer will multiply
with the WalshHadamard code, and the MC-CDMA symbol dn can

2M
(u)
be detected [6]. It is worthy noting that the conventional decision-
z = Ri zi directed scheme in [1] adopts the previous estimates to perform
i=0 the current MMSE equalization. Its conventional MMSE equalizer

2M cn (m) is

(t)
Pz = Ri (zi z)(zi z)T . (24)
H
i=0 Hn1|n1 (m)
cn (m) =

. (28)
For the nonlinear state-space model of (18) and (19) with additive
Hn1|n1 (m)
2 + QVn (m)/s2
noise, the UKF is a straightforward application of the unscented
transformation. The overall procedure for the UKF is depicted in
Table I.
C. MMSE Equalizer
An enhanced MMSE equalizer is developed based on the
proposed UKF-based estimation method. The transmitted signal
Sn (m) is replaced by the regenerated signal Sn (m) for channel-
parameter tracking since Sn (m) is unavailable for the receiver in
the tracking mode. The regenerated signal Sn (m) is obtained from
the detected data dn in (17). That means the current channel-
parameter tracking can be done after the current data detected.
However, the MMSE data detection needs to have the current chan-
nel parameters. This is a delay problem of the decision-directed
channel-tracking scheme. However, the previous estimates will not
be suitable for the current equalization when the channel varia-
tion is fast. Because the UKF algorithm provides the one-step-
ahead prediction Hn|n1 during the prediction stage, a robust
MMSE equalization can be developed for the fast-fading chan-
nel case.
The MMSE equalization for the MC-CDMA systems under the
assumption of a perfectly known channel has been previously provided
in [13]. A robust MMSE equalizer for each subchannel is developed
here with consideration of channel estimation error. The prediction
error for channel estimation is defined as
Hn|n1 (m) = Hn|n1 (m) Hn (m). (25) rate and the mean square error (MSE) of channel estimation, with
It is based on the assumption that the channel variation is slow.
However, the enhanced MMSE equalizer in (27) contains the
one-step-ahead prediction and the covariance of prediction error. It
can provide more precise detection than the conventional MMSE
equalizer.
IV. C OMPUTER S IMULATION
A computer simulation has been conducted to confirm the perfor-
mance of the proposed method. The urban case is considered. Table II
shows the power delay profile in the urban area with the root mean
square delay = 1 s. The mobile velocity from 5 to 110 km/h is
used to simulate different mobile environments. The central frequency
fc is 2 GHz in the MC-CDMA system. The total bandwidth BW is
2.048 MHz, which is divided into 1024 subchannels. The subchan-
nel spacing is then f = 2 kHz. An additional 8-s guard-interval
duration is used to provide protection from ISI due to the channel
multipath delay spread. The length of the adopted WalshHadamard
code is N = 64 chips. Thus, the MC-CDMA system can support
the maximum 64 active users. The AR(2) model parameters a1 and
a2 are defined in (9). The parameter of the pole radius is chosen
as rd = 0.998 for the simulation cases [7]. It is also assumed that
the channel remains approximately constant during one MC symbol
period. The data-modulation scheme is quadrature phase-shift keying
in the following simulation.
The performance of the systems is measured by the symbol error
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2010 4663

Fig. 3. MSE of estimation by different channel-tracking methods for the user Fig. 4. MSE of prediction by different channel-tracking methods for the user
with time-varying velocity. with time-varying velocity.

simulation for 50 trials and 2000 MC-CDMA symbols per trial. The
MSE of the channel estimation is defined as


N 1 


E
Hn (m) Hn (m)
.
2
MSE =
m=0

The users velocity is a random variable and varies with time in

the realistic applications. Thus, an UKF has been proposed to jointly
estimate the dynamics and path gains of the channel via nonlinear
estimation. To simulate a velocity-varying mobile radio channel, the
velocity of the mobile station is assumed to be a random variable
uniformly distributed in the range of 5 km/h (fD T = 0.0047)
110 km/h (fD T = 0.1034) with different signal-to-noise ratios in
each trial. The initializations of X0 and P0 are set to [1.85 0 0]T
and diag([105 105 105 ]), respectively. The MSEs using different
channel estimation methods are compared in Fig. 3. The 2-D pilot-
added channel-tracking method is given in [14]. The time-domain
pilots are spaced by a minimum coherence time Tcoh , which is equal
to the reciprocal of a double maximum Doppler frequency Tcoh = Fig. 5. SER of different channel-tracking methods for the user with time-
(1/2fD ). Both the previously presented first-order Kalman filter [1] varying velocity.
and the second-order Kalman filter [15] are failed because these
two methods adopt fixed dynamics. The EKF is less accurate than as UKF using the average of sigma points. The results of MMSE
the proposed UKF, although it can also be used for the nonlinear equalizers using different channel-tracking schemes are compared in
estimation. Therefore, the proposed UKF can get the best result for Fig. 5, with the performance of a perfectly known channel as the
channel estimation among these methods. lower bound. The performances of the two dynamic-fixed Kalman
The main drawback of the 2-D pilot-added channel estimation is the filters are bounded by the large estimation error. The proposed UKF-
occupancy of bandwidth, which is a valuable resource for the service based channel-tracking algorithm can perform the best equalization
providers. The decision-directed channel-tracking scheme is proposed and detection among these five methods because it can most accurately
to avoid this occupancy. However, the conventional decision-directed estimate and predict the channel.
scheme can only adopt the previous estimate for current equalization
and detection. The performance of detectors could be deteriorated V. C ONCLUSION
by unsuitable estimates when the fading rate is high. Therefore, an
accurate channel prediction is necessary to solve the delay problem A robust channel-tracking method has been presented for fast time-
of the decision-directed scheme. The MSEs of channel prediction varying multipath fading channel in an MC-CDMA system. The
error using different decision-directed channel-tracking algorithms are channel model is described by a nonlinear state-space equation. The
compared in Fig. 4. It can be seen that, without the overhead symbols, state includes the gains and dynamics of the channel. The proposed
the EKF and the proposed UKF can still more accurately predict UKF-based decision-directed channel-tracking scheme can estimate
the channel than the 2-D pilot-added method when the velocity is the state via a nonlinear estimation to achieve robustness for the
time varying. Although the EKF can predict the next state using the time-varying velocity. In addition, it does not need a training signal
nonlinear process function, it cannot achieve the accuracy of prediction periodically, so that the occupation of the available bandwidth is
4664 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 59, NO. 9, NOVEMBER 2010
avoided. The delay problem of the decision-directed scheme can also
be solved with the prediction ability of the proposed method. The
MMSE equalizer can be enhanced using the covariance of estimation
error, which is obtained from UKF. Simulation results indicate that
the proposed method can more accurately track the channel than the
other methods. Therefore, the proposed UKF-based decision-directed
channel tracking for MC-CDMA systems is very useful for a user with
time-varying velocity over a fast multipath fading channel.
Since the MC-CDMA technique integrates the OFDM and CDMA
schemes, the proposed method can be easily implemented to these
two systems. The multi-inputmulti-ouput OFDM (MIMO-OFDM)
system has recently attracted much attention for research. Application
of the proposed method to MIMO-OFDM system is a good topic for
future study.
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