Joint data and channel estimation using the per-branche processing method

Joint data and channel estimation in a wireless communication system and over frequency selective Rayleigh fad ing channels can be performed by implementing Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation (MLSE) using the Per-Survivor Processing (PSP) Method. However, PSP can be used only if there is one channel estimation per symbol interval. In this paper we introduce the Per-Branch Processing (PBP) method as a general case of PSI: which has the advantages of PSP and allows more than one estimation per symbol to improve the receiver error pelfomance in fast fding. The Kalman filter is considered for channel estimation and the overall bit error rate (BER) pegomnce is shown to be superior to that of detection techniques using th