Interference suppression with iterative channel and spatial covariance matrix estimation for LTE downlink

In LTE downlink systems with a high frequency reuse factor, inter-cell interference has been viewed as a predominant factor limiting system performance. Therefore, we develop an iterative interference suppression receiver to mitigate inter-cell interference for LTE downlink systems in this paper. The key challenge here is how to accurately estimate the channel state information and spatial interference covariance matrix by using limited available pilots to improve the interference suppression capability and the successful probability of signal detection. To overcome the challenge, an iterative receiver making full use of the time–frequency correlation of channel is proposed. Simulation results show that the proposed iterative receiver can obtain a lower packet-error ratio compared with the existing algorithms.