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This paper deals with the goodness of the Gaussian assumption when designing second-order blind estimation methods in the context of digital communications. The low- and high-signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) asymptotic performance of the maximum likelihood estimator - derived assuming Gaussian transmitted symbols - is compared with the performance of the optimal second-order estimator, which exploits the actual distribution of the discrete constellation. The asymptotic study concludes that the Gaussian assumption leads to the optimal second-order solution if the SNR is very low or if the symbols belong to a multilevel constellation such as quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM) or amplitude-phase-shift keying (APSK). On the other hand, the Gaussian assumption can yield important losses at high SNR if the transmitted symbols are drawn from a constant modulus constellation such as phase-shift keying (PSK) or continuous-phase modulations (CPM). These conclusions are illustrated for the problem of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation of multiple digitally-modulated signals., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

This paper proposes a spatial filtering technique for the reception of pilot-aided multirate multicode direct-sequence code division multiple access (DS/CDMA) systems such as wideband CDMA (WCDMA). These systems introduce a code-multiplexed pilot sequence that can be used for the estimation of the filter weights, but the presence of the traffic signal (transmitted at the same time as the pilot sequence) corrupts that estimation and degrades the performance of the filter significantly. This is caused by the fact that although the traffic and pilot signals are usually designed to be orthogonal, the frequency selectivity of the channel degrades this orthogonality at hte receiving end. Here, we propose a semi-blind technique that eliminates the self-noise caused by the code-multiplexing of the pilot. We derive analytically the asymptotic performance of both the training-only and the semi-blind techniques and compare them with the actual simulated performance. It is shown, both analytically and via simulation, that high gains can be achieved with respect to training-onlybased techniques., Peer Reviewed

Potential Military Applications: 1. Situation Awareness 2. Cueing & Targeting 3. Land Mine Alternatives Platforms: 1. Vehicle-Mounted 2. Unattended Ground Sensors 3. Man-Portable., Presented at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Air-Coupled Acoustic Microsensors Workshop held in Crystal City, Virginia on 24-25 August 1999. The original document contains color images. Document contains briefing charts.