An adaptive channel estimator for CDMA systems in multipath fading channels

CDMA systems in multipath fading channels need to estimate channel parameters for coherent detection of the transmitted signals. In this paper we present a simple but effective channel estimation algorithm that can be incorporated into most types of multiuser receivers to obtain good detection performance. This technique uses a set of correlation filters to independently estimate each of the channel parameters. One advantage our method has over subspace-based algorithms for channel estimation is that it can estimate the channel parameters without phase or amplitude ambiguity. Simulation results demonstrating that our channel estimator is capable of tracking reasonably fast fading channels are also presented in the paper.