Performance improvement in detection and estimation of MC-CDMA systems over MIMO channels

Multiple-input Multiple-output (MIMO) multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) is a strong candidate for the downlink of future mobile communications to obtain high data rates. Nevertheless, during any transmission over fading channel, performance of MC-CDMA systems are highly degraded due to the presence of multiple access interference (MAI). Multi-user detection (MUD) and channel estimation play a major role in overcoming MAI and characterising the channel, respectively. In this paper, space time serial interference cancellation (STSIC) detection using random and Gold codes and turbo aided iterative channel estimation (ICE) techniques are extended for MC-CDMA system MIMO channels to overcome MAI. Simulation results show STSIC outperforms optimal MUD and linear MUD techniques in mitigating MAI and turbo aided ICE surpasses ICE in characterising the channel with reduced error rates.