New Semi-Blind Algorithms for Space-Time Rake Receivers in WCDMA Systems

In this work, we examine the problem of multichannel equalization/identification for W-CDMA systems employing long codes. We develop new semi-blind algorithms and compare their performance with that exhibited by the most common approaches. We verify through numerical simulations, employing the COST-259 channel propagation model, that classical pilotbased approaches do not allow W-CDMA systems to achieve satisfactory capacity, specially in the presence of high data rate users, and that the proposed semi-blind approaches performed robustly, leading in general to much smaller error rates.