Impact of imperfect pilot-symbol-aided channel estimation on TCM performance over Rayleigh fading channels

In this paper, we present a simple method of approximating BER performance of a mobile communication system using trellis-coded modulation and realist ic and thus imperfect channel estimation. We consider the case of pilot-sym bol-aided modulation (PSAM) by interpolation on flat Rayleigh fading channe ls. Different methods of PSAM are considered and compared on the realistic Bessel channel model as well as on a simplified Butterworth model. An error floor at high SNR is identified as the most important degradation from the case of ideal channel estimation. Error floor values, necessary for system dimensioning, can easily be approximated using a modified approach to exac t pairwise error probability (PEP) calculation. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B .V. All rights reserved.