Channel estimation and tracking with nested sampling for fast-moving users in millimeter-wave communication

Abstract

Channel estimation is very challenging in millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications since the receiver is usually equipped with a limited number of radio-frequency (RF) chains and a large number of antennas. The receiver can only observe a low-dimensional projection of the received signals due to the huge gap between the numbers of RF chains and antennas. Instead of using the phase-shifter which is not a simple circuit at mmWave, we employ a switch network for analog design, which is equivalent to an antenna selection process. To increase the resolution and accuracy, a nested sampling strategy is used to formulate a virtual array with a larger aperture, aiming to reduce the complexity and power consumption of the system. We also consider the Doppler effect caused by the fast-moving user which may seriously deteriorate the channel estimation accuracy. Based on the covariance fitting criterion, a joint Doppler and channel estimation method is proposed without need of discretizing the angle space, and thus the model mismatch effect can be totally eliminated. Finally, we excavate the temporal variation law of the user to estimate the line-of-sight (LoS) channel in the current time slot by using the estimates from the previous two time slots. Numerical simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of our proposed method.