MC‐CDMA MIMO systems with quasi‐orthogonal space–time block codes: Channel estimation and multiuser detection

This paper investigates blind channel estimation and multiuser detection for quasi‐synchronous multi‐carrier code‐division multiple‐access (MC‐CDMA) multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) systems with quasi‐orthogonal space–time block codes (QO‐STBC). Subspace‐based blind channel estimation is proposed by considering a QO‐STBC scheme that involves four transmit antennas and multiple receive antennas. Based on the first‐order perturbation theory, the mean square error of the channel estimation is derived. With the estimated channel coefficients, we employ minimum output energy and eigenspace receivers for symbol detection. Using the QO‐STBC coding property, the weight analyses are performed to reduce the computational complexity of the system. In addition, the forward–backward averaging technique is presented to enhance the performance of multiuser detection. Numerical simulations are given to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed channel estimation methods and symbol detection techniques. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.