IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 44, NO. 10, OCTOBER 1997 877
A New Block Adaptive Filtering Algorithm for
Decision-Feedback Equalization of Multipath
Fading Channels
Terence Wang and Chin-Liang Wang
Abstract—This brief presents a modified general optimum block adap-
tive (MGOBA) algorithm for block adaptive decision-feedback equal-
ization (DFE) of multipath fading channels. Unlike the original GOBA
algorithm, which was proposed only for processing real-valued signals
and its recursion cannot work correctly for adaptive DFE when the
block length is less than the number of decision-feedback equalizer (also
abbreviated to DFE) coefficients, the MGOBA algorithm can process
complex-valued signals and its recursion has no constraints on the block
length as well as the number of DFE coefficients. As compared to the
sequential Kalman and another previously proposed optimum block
adaptive algorithms, the MGOBA algorithm achieves better error-rate
performance for block adaptive DFE of rapidly fading radio channels.
Index Terms—Adaptive filtering, block adaptive algorithm, decision-
feedback equalization, intersymbol interference, multipath fading chan-
nel.
I. INTRODUCTION
Radio channels are important communication links in modern
data transmission systems. Unlike telephone channels, whose im-
pulse responses are time-invariant or very slowly time-varying, radio
channels have randomly time-varying impulse responses caused by
several distinct independent propagation paths as well as continually
changing physical characteristics of the media [1]. Therefore, they
have been referred to as multipath fading channels.
Mitigation of intersymbol interference (ISI) from multipath fading
channels can be accomplished by decision-feedback equalization
(DFE) [2]. Basically, a decision-feedback equalizer (also abbreviated
to DFE) consists of a feedforward filter, a feedback filter, and a
threshold detector as shown in Fig. 1. As compared to the maximum
likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) technique [3], which is
optimum in the sense that the probability of a sequence error is
minimized, the DFE has much lower computational complexity and
could reach comparable performance on real recorded high frequency
(HF) channels [2]. A number of adaptive DFE methods have been
proposed for multipath fading channels, such as one-directional
equalization [4], bidirectional equalization [5], and block equalization
[6]. Among them, the one-directional and bidirectional approaches
involve the decision-directed mode where the DFE coefficients are
adjusted using the threshold detector’s output. One major problem
associated with the decision-directed mode is that it may cause
divergence of the corresponding adaptive DFE system when the
channel has fast time variations and/or a deep fade. In contrast, the
block adaptive DFE approach updates the DFE coefficients based
only on known training sequences and does not involve the decision-
directed mode; as a consequence, it avoids the serious divergence
problem and has much less average computational complexity.
To update the DFE coefficients of a block adaptive DFE system,
a sequential or block adaptive algorithm can be used. A sequential
Manuscript received June 13, 1995; revised December 11, 1996. This paper
was recommended by Associate Editor T. Hinamoto.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Na-
tional Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30043, R.O.C. (e-mail:
clwang@ee.nthu.edu.tw).
Publisher Item Identifier S 1057-7130(97)06585-3.
Fig. 1. The basic DFE structure.
adaptive algorithm adjusts the coefficients when a new input data
sample arrives, while a block adaptive algorithm adjusts them only
once every block of input data samples. The sequential Kalman
algorithm [7], [8] has been shown to be useful for DFE of multipath
fading channels. However, it was indicated in [9] and [10] that a block
adaptive algorithm usually provides better tracking performance than
a sequential one. This means that it is worth developing a good block
adaptive algorithm for block adaptive DFE systems.
Some block adaptive algorithms have been introduced in the
literature for adaptive finite impulse response (FIR) filtering. The
block least mean square (BLMS) algorithm in [9] is a stochastic
gradient algorithm with a fixed convergence factor
B
, where
B
controls the convergence speed, accuracy, and stability of the adaptive
system. Unlike the BLMS algorithm, the optimum block adaptive
(OBA) and the OBA shifting (OBAS) algorithms [11] employ a
time-varying convergence factor
B
(
s
)
which is optimized in a least
squares (LS) sense and updated at each block iteration. Although
these two algorithms converge at higher rates than the BLMS algo-
rithm to achieve the same convergence accuracy, their convergence
rates deteriorate when the adaptive filter order is high and/or the
input signal is colored (band-limited) [11]. This problem can be
solved by using the block fast transversal filters (BFTF) algorithm
in [12] or the optimum block adaptive algorithm with individual
adaptation of parameters (OBAI) in [13]. These two algorithms were
derived based on LS criteria, and they may be said to be equivalent
since their estimates of the Wiener solution are the same at each
block iteration. This can be checked by comparing (7) and (16) in
[12] with (19) and (29) in [13]. The BFTF and OBAI algorithms
achieve better convergence and faster tracking than the BLMS and
OBA/OBAS algorithms when the block length is greater than or
equal to the FIR filter coefficient number, but they do not work in
the opposite case [14]. In [14], a general optimum block adaptive
(GOBA) algorithm was proposed for adaptive FIR filtering. For this
1057–7130/97$10.00 1997 IEEE
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