Abstract

Based on the factor graph framework, we derived a Modified Nonparametric Message Passing Algorithm (MNMPA) for soft iterative channel estimation in a Low Density Parity-Check (LDPC) coded Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation (BICM) system. The algorithm combines ideas from Particle Filtering (PF) with popular factor graph techniques. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) move step is added after typical sequential Important Sampling (SIS) -resampling to prevent particle impoverishment and to improve channel estimation precision. To reduce complexity, a new max-sum rule for updating particle based messages is reformulated and two proper update schedules are designed. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of MNMPA and its comparison with other sum-product algorithms in a Gaussian or non-Gaussian noise environment. We also studied the effect of the particle number, pilot symbol spacing and different schedules on BER performance.

Keywords:

Channel estimation, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), max-sum rule, message passing algorithm,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.