BLUE-Based Channel Estimation Technique for Amplify and Forward Wireless Relay Networks

The best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE) is most suitable for practical application and can be determined with knowledge of only the first and second moments of the probability density function. Although the BLUE is an existing algorithm, it is still largely unexplored and has not yet been applied to channel estimation in amplify and forward (AF)-based wireless relay networks (WRNs). In this paper, a BLUE-based algorithm is proposed to estimate the overall channel impulse response between the source and destination of AF strategy-based WRNs. Theoretical mean square error (MSE) performance for the BLUE is derived to show the accuracy of the proposed channel estimation algorithm. In addition, the Cram$\acute{e}$r-Rao lower bound (CRLB) is derived to validate the MSE performance. The proposed BLUE channel estimation algorithm approaches the CRLB as the length of the training sequence and number of relays increases. Further, the BLUE performs better than the linear minimum MSE estimator due to the minimum variance characteristic exhibited by the BLUE, which happens to be a function of signal-to-noise ratio.