BLIND CHANNEL IDENTIFICATION AND EQUALIZATION

A FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A BLIND CHANNEL IDENTIFIER/EQUALIZER (BCIE) FOR APPLICATIONS IN COMMERCIAL DIGITAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS IS BEING PERFORMED. THE BCIE WILL BE SUITABLE FOR USE ON DIGITAL COMMUNICATION SIGNALS SUCH AS BPSK, QPSK, M-PSK, AND M-ARY QAM, THAT ARE CORRUPTED BY UNKNOWN CHANNEL DISTORTION AND NOISE. THESE SIGNALS ARE CURRENTLY USED IN EXISTING AS WELL AS MANY PROPOSED WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS. IN THESE SYSTEMS, EQUALIZATION IS NEEDED AT THE RECEIVER TO RELIABLY EXTRACT THE TRANSMITTED MESSAGE FROM THE RECEIVED DATA. BCIES OFFER SEVERAL DISTINCT SYSTEM PERFORMANCE ADVANTAGES OVER MORE CONVENTIONAL EQUALIZERS, BUT THEIR IMPLEMENTATION IS NOT WITHOUT SOME COMPROMISES; THESE TRADEOFFS ARE BEING EVALUATED. THE RANGE OF OPERATING ENVIRONMENTS ACCOMMODATED BY THE BCIE IS BEING DETERMINED, AND THE PERFORMANCE AND APPLICABILITY OF THE CANDIDATE BCIE ALGORITHMS CHARACTERIZED. THE CANDIDATE ALGORITHMS ARE SELECTED FROM AMONG THE EXISTING BCIE ALGORITHMS AND A NEW ALGORITHM RECENTLY DEVELOPED WHICH-ACCORDING TO INITIAL EVALUATION-HAS EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE POTENTIAL. COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE DSP HARDWARE APPROPRIATE FOR PROTOTYPE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CANDIDATE BCIE ALGORITHM WILL BE EVALUATED.