Fisher-information-matrix based analysis of semiblind MIMO frequency selective channel estimation (Q642682)

Summary: We present a study of semiblind (SB) estimation for a frequency-selective (FS) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless channel using a novel Fisher-information-matrix (FIM) based approach. The frequency selective MIMO system is modeled as a matrix finite impulse response (FIR) channel, and the transmitted data symbols comprise of a sequence of pilot symbols followed by the unknown blind symbols. It is demonstrated that the FIM for this system can be expressed as the sum of the blind FIM \(J^{b}\) and pilot FIM \(J^{p}\). We present a key result relating the rank of the FIM to the number of blindly identifiable parameters. We then present a novel maximum-likelihood (ML) scheme for the semiblind estimation of the MIMO FIR channel. We derive the Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) for the semiblind scheme. It is observed that the semi-blind MSE of estimation of the MIMO FIR channel is potentially much lower compared to an exclusively pilot-based scheme. Finally, we derive a lower bound for the minimum number of pilot symbols necessary for the estimation of an FIR MIMO channel for any general semi-blind scheme. Simulation results are presented to augment the above analysis.