Two‐pilot channel estimation scheme for amplify‐and‐forward relay networks

SUMMARY In amplify‐and‐forward relay networks, the equivalent channel to the destination node is not independent of equivalent noise and the equivalent noise does not follow a Gaussian distribution. Therefore, it is difficult to directly estimate the equivalent channel based on traditional optimal rules. In this paper, we propose a two‐pilot estimation (TPE) scheme that decomposes a non‐Gaussian noise channel estimation problem into two channel estimation problems in Gaussian noise. In TPE scheme, the relay‐destination channel is first estimated by one pilot and the other pilot is used to estimate the equivalent channel with the aid of the estimated relay‐destination channel. Simulation results show that the TPE scheme can achieve less estimation error and larger system throughput than other existing channel estimators in slow fading case.