Performance of a complex spread multi-code CDMA rake receiver with imperfect channel estimation

Abstract

The bit error rate (BER) performance of a multi-code CDMA RAKE receiver over band-limited fading channels is analyzed in this paper. We consider a pilot-assisted channel estimation mechanism and investigate, among others, the effect of imperfect channel estimation. Our analysis removes some idealized assumptions used in earlier efforts, taking multiple access interference, inter-channel interference (ICI), and the effects of bandlimiting as well as time-varying correlated multipath fading all into account. As a result, we are able to obtain more accurate performance prediction and assess the impacts of some system parameters that have not been considered before.