Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chen, Chin-Hung, Nikoloska, Ivana, van Houtum, Wim, Wu, Yan, Alvarado, Alex
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.21340
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917106501550080
author Chen, Chin-Hung
Nikoloska, Ivana
van Houtum, Wim
Wu, Yan
Alvarado, Alex
author_facet Chen, Chin-Hung
Nikoloska, Ivana
van Houtum, Wim
Wu, Yan
Alvarado, Alex
contents This paper presents a fully blind phase-aware expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for OFDM systems with the phase-shift keying (PSK) modulation. We address the well-known local maximum problem of the EM algorithm for blind channel estimation. This is primarily caused by the unknown phase ambiguity in the channel estimates, which conventional blind EM estimators cannot resolve. To overcome this limitation, we propose to exploit the extrinsic information from the decoder as model evidence metrics. A finite set of candidate models is generated based on the inherent symmetries of PSK modulation, and the decoder selects the most likely candidate model. Simulation results demonstrate that, when combined with a simple convolutional code, the phase-aware EM algorithm reliably resolves phase ambiguity during the initialization stage and reduces the local convergence rate from 80% to nearly 0% in frequency-selective channels with a constant phase ambiguity. The algorithm is invoked only once after the EM initialization stage, resulting in negligible additional complexity during subsequent turbo iterations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_21340
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Phase-Aware Code-Aided EM Algorithm for Blind Channel Estimation in PSK-Modulated OFDM
Chen, Chin-Hung
Nikoloska, Ivana
van Houtum, Wim
Wu, Yan
Alvarado, Alex
Signal Processing
Machine Learning
This paper presents a fully blind phase-aware expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for OFDM systems with the phase-shift keying (PSK) modulation. We address the well-known local maximum problem of the EM algorithm for blind channel estimation. This is primarily caused by the unknown phase ambiguity in the channel estimates, which conventional blind EM estimators cannot resolve. To overcome this limitation, we propose to exploit the extrinsic information from the decoder as model evidence metrics. A finite set of candidate models is generated based on the inherent symmetries of PSK modulation, and the decoder selects the most likely candidate model. Simulation results demonstrate that, when combined with a simple convolutional code, the phase-aware EM algorithm reliably resolves phase ambiguity during the initialization stage and reduces the local convergence rate from 80% to nearly 0% in frequency-selective channels with a constant phase ambiguity. The algorithm is invoked only once after the EM initialization stage, resulting in negligible additional complexity during subsequent turbo iterations.
title Phase-Aware Code-Aided EM Algorithm for Blind Channel Estimation in PSK-Modulated OFDM
topic Signal Processing
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.21340