Blind channel estimation for cyclic prefix-free orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing systems with particular input symbols

Subspace algorithms are commonly used for blind channel estimation in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems as they can establish the relation between the channel impulse response and singular vectors of the noise subspace. However, they are not workable under the conventional cyclic prefix-free OFDM signal model as the corresponding necessary condition of subspace algorithms is not satisfied. To solve this problem, this study proposes two subspace-based blind channel estimation approaches using the real and periodic symbols of time-domain transmitted OFDM blocks. From the simulation results, we can obtain the proposed approaches outperform conventional ones in terms of normalised mean-squared error and bit error rate under time-invariant channel environments.