Training Design and Channel Estimation in Uplink Cloud Radio Access Networks

To decrease the training overhead and improve the channel estimation accuracy in uplink cloud radio access networks (C-RANs), a superimposed-segment training design is proposed. The core idea of the proposal is that each mobile station superimposes a periodic training sequence on the data signal, and each remote radio head prepends a separate pilot to the received signal before forwarding it to the centralized base band unit pool. Moreover, a complex-exponential basis-expansion-model based channel estimation algorithm to maximize a posteriori probability is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed channel estimation algorithm can effectively decrease the estimation mean square error and increase the average effective signal-to-noise ratio (AESNR) in C-RANs.