Abstract—Performance of pilot-aided channel estimation techniques such as the Least Squares (LS) method depends on not only on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), channel conditions and pilot ratio, but also on the choice of interpolation method for deriving channel estimates at non-pilot subcarriers. This paper investigates the bit-error-rate (BER) performance of linear, spline and Piecewise Cubic Hermite Interpolating Polynomial (PCHIP) interpolation methods in LS channel estimation over the three extended ITU channel profiles defined for Long Term Evolution (LTE) testing. Simulation results show that applying the linear interpolation method produces the best BER performance over the fading channel with the smallest multipath delay spread. It is also shown that the choice of best interpolation method actually depends on the SNR in some of the fading channel profiles.
Index Terms—ITU, LS, LTE, PCHIP, spline.
S. A. Adegbite, B. G. Stewart, and S. G. McMeekin are with Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK (e-mail: saheed.adegbite@gcu.ac.uk;b.stewart@gcu.ac.uk; scott.mcmeekin@gcu.ac.uk).
Cite: S. Adegbite, B. G. Stewart, and S. G. McMeekin, "Least Squares Interpolation Methods for LTE System Channel Estimation over Extended ITU Channels," International Journal of Information and Electronics Engineering vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 414-418, 2013.