Intercarrier interference suppression and channel estimation for OFDM systems in time-varying frequency-selective fading channels

Abstract

In orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, channel variations within an OFDM block destroy orthogonality between subcarriers, resulting in intercarrier interference (ICl), which increases an error floor in proportional to normalized Doppler frequency. To mitigate the effects of channel variations, many schemes have been proposed, but they are computationally complex or at the price of sacrificing spectral efficiency. In this paper, we first provide an ICI analysis in both time- and frequency-domain while existing literatures analyze the ICI effects mainly in the frequency domain. Based on this analysis, we then propose a novel ICI suppression technique, which uses iterative ICI cancellation in time domain and has a computational complexity that is linear in the OFDM symbol length. Channel estimation in rapidly time-varying scenarios is critical for ICl suppression and coherent demodulation. We also propose a scheme for estimating the channel parameters varying within an OFDM block. Along with the channel estimation scheme, we investigate the issue of optimum pilot tone placement. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed ICl suppression method and channel estimation scheme have low computational complexity and good performance for most Doppler frequency of practical importance.