Forty-Eighth Annual Allerton Conference
Allerton House, UIUC, Illinois, USA
September 29 - October 1, 2010
Dynamic Channel Equalization for IEEE 802.11p
Waveforms in the Vehicle-to-Vehicle Channel
Joseph A. Fernandez, Student Member, IEEE, Daniel D. Stancil, Fellow, IEEE, and Fan Bai, Member,
IEEE
Abstract—The IEEE 802.11p standard (or Dedicated Short
Range Communication, DSRC) [1] has been proposed to be the
standard for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-
infrastructure (V2I) communications. Since the IEEE 802.11a-
based DSRC standard is not fully customized for outdoor,
highly mobile channels, the performance of DSRC standard
might degrade in a challenging V2V channel. In this paper, we
develop several equalization schemes that are able to closely
track the V2V channel dynamics and thus improve
performance at the physical layer. Through a set of empirical
experiments, we show that the performance (in terms of Packet
Error Rate) can be significantly improved from 41% (using a
simple Least Square Estimator) to 19% (using a Spectral
Temporal Averaging Estimator).
I. INTRODUCTION
W IRELESS communication is widely believed to facilitate
the efficient coordination among vehicles on the road,
and thus enable a number of future vehicular
applications such as safety, infotainment, or even
autonomous driving. For instance, information about real-
time traffic, road conditions, and the state of other vehicles
can be transmitted over wireless channel such that a given
vehicle can process the traffic information and alert the
driver of an impending traffic jam or safety issue.
To realize these applications, it is imperative to have a
robust physical-layer protocol which is able to provide
reliable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) or vehicle-to-infrastructure
(V2I) communication in a rich variety of driving
environments. To achieve this goal, the IEEE 802.11p
standard (or Dedicated Short Range Communication, DSRC)
[1], which is a variant of OFDM-based IEEE 802.11a
standard with few changes such as operating frequency and
bandwidth, has been proposed to be the standard for V2V
and V2I communications. Unlike the 802.11a standard,
which is designed to operate in stationary, relatively benign
indoor environments, the IEEE 802.11p standard is expected
to operate in highly dynamic V2V channels. The channel
characteristics of V2V channels are fundamentally different
from those of indoor channels:
Manuscript received September 23, 2010. This work was supported in
part by General Motors Corporation.
J.A. Fernandez is with Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
15213 USA (phone: 412-268-4036; fax: (412)-268-6345; e-mail:
jafernan@andrew.cmu.edu).
D.D. Stancil was with Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
15213 USA. He is now with North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
27695. (e-mail: ddstancil@ncsu.edu).
Fan Bai is with General Motors Corporation, Warren, MI 48090, USA.
(e-mail: fan.bai@gm.com).
978-1-4244-8216-0/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 542
• Multipath components are considerably longer in
outdoor channels than they are in indoor channels. This
increases the likelihood of inter-symbol interference
(ISI);
• The V2V channel is highly dynamic. There are moving
reflectors (such as other cars and buses) in addition to
large stationary reflectors (such as buildings, hills, trees
and signs);
• Both the transmitter vehicle and the receiver vehicle can
be moving with respect to the environment and each
other. These motions significantly affect the Doppler
spectrum, and hence the fading properties of the
channel.
Because of these factors, it has been shown by a large body
of research literature that the V2V channel changes
dramatically over the course of a single packet transmission.
As a result, when IEEE 802.11p waveforms are sent through
the V2V channel, the performance (in terms of Packet Error
Rate, PER) could significantly degrade in realistic vehicular
environments partly because the IEEE 802.11p waveform
structure was not designed to combat the effects of the V2V
channel.
The primary concerns over the packet/waveform
construction of the IEEE 802.11p standard are two-fold: (1)
there is lack of a sufficient pilot feedback mechanism which
is appropriate for the highly dynamic V2V channel; (2) the
initial channel estimate mechanism is not adequate to track
the highly evolving V2V channel.
It is clear that dynamic equalization of the waveform at
the physical layer is needed to enhance the existing IEEE
802.11p standard. In this paper, we develop a number of
equalization schemes: Comb Pilot Interpolation, Comb Co-
Pilot Interpolation, Constellation-Aware Data Equalization,
and Spectral Temporal Averaging. These equalization
mechanisms exploit the channel dynamic information
embedded in the pilot and co-pilot subcarrier (in both
temporal domain and spectral domain), so that DSRC radios
are able to better track the V2V channel conditions and thus
update the channel estimate in a timely and accurate fashion.
Through a set of empirical experiments, we showed that the
performance (in terms of Packet Error Rate) could be
significantly improved from 41% (using a conventional
Least Square Estimator) to 19% (using a Spectral Temporal
Averaging Estimator designed in this paper).
The organization of this paper is as follows. In section II,
we give a brief overview of the related work. In section III,
we describe our test setup for experimental validation of our
equalizer techniques. In section IV, we describe the basic
equalization scheme that is typical of IEEE 802.11a
hardware, and then explain our enhanced equalization
schemes. In section V, we present our results, and we
conclude in section VI.
II. RELATED WORK
There is a wealth of research that has been done on the
equalization of OFDM signals in harsh environments. The
majority of this type of research work is independent of any
given standard, and usually explores different equalization
techniques for custom OFDM signals. Here, we focus on the
research that has been conducted for 802.11 based systems.
Compared to indoor environments, outdoor environments
feature a longer delay spread due to longer multipath
components. This has caused concern that the guard interval
for 802.11a was too short for outdoor use. Several methods
for combating excessively long delay spread in 802.11a are
found in [2,3]. However, 802.11p has a guard interval that is
twice as long as the guard interval in 802.11a (a direct
consequence of the narrower bandwidth used in 802.11p).
This guard interval makes 802.11p more resilient to
multipath than 802.11a. Based on our previous channel
measurements [4], long delay spread is not a significant
problem affecting 802.11p, and therefore attention is focused
instead on other V2V channel impairments.
The channel estimation for 802.11a is accomplished by
having the transmitter send two training symbols at the
beginning of every packet that are known to the receiver.
The receiver uses these two symbols to estimate the channel,
and then applies this estimate to equalize the rest of the data
symbols. This scheme assumes that the channel will remain
stationary for the duration of the packet, such that the
estimate is valid for all received data symbols. Techniques
exist to improve the performance and accuracy of the initial
channel estimate in packetized transmissions, with an
example found in [5]. While this method is important for
802.11a, the short coherence time of the V2V channel
nullifies any gains realized by a more accurate initial
estimation. Instead, a channel tracking scheme must be
developed to update the initial channel estimate.
Some work has been done on adaptive channel tracking
algorithms for DSRC and/or 802.11. In [6], decision directed
channel feedback from data symbols is determined by
decoding and remodulating symbols in order to re-estimate
the channel throughout the packet. This method is costly in
that it requires Viterbi decoding and remodulation of OFDM
symbols as equalization is taking place. In [3], a similar
technique is employed for 802.11a packets that are applied
to a vehicular environment. This works in tandem with a
time domain equalizer that reduces the effects of multipath
and intersymbol interference. In [7], an adaptive technique
using vehicle speed, signal to noise ratio, and packet length
is used to aid in tracking the channel using data symbols. In
[8], the least mean squares (LMS) algorithm is used in
conjunction with pilot data to correct for residual carrier
frequency offset and channel conditions throughout the
length of the packet. A conventional preamble-based
equalization technique is compared to two forms of decision
543
feedback techniques (one with and one without a Viterbi
decoder) in [9].
Still other research investigates modifications to the
802.11p physical layer. Zhang et al [10] focus on a physical
layer for 802.11p that uses time-domain differential OFDM.
The work in [11] studies the effect of inserting so-called
midable training symbols periodically throughout the packet
so that the channel may be re-estimated. In [12], an
alternative physical layer using pseudo-pilots is proposed
that removes data at the transmitter and injects pilots prior to
transmission. These pilots are then used to estimate the
channel and are discarded and replaced with random data at
the receiver. While all three of these techniques improve
performance in the mobile environment, they clearly require
a change to the 802.11p standard. In contrast, our work
focuses on receiver-centric improvements and therefore it
does not require changes to the current 802.11p standard.
III. EXPERIMENTAL FRAMEWORK
This piece of work aims to develop a receiver-centric
equalization scheme, which is able to improve packet
reception performance of DSRC radios. With an appropriate
equalization scheme, a DSRC radio is able to reduce raw bit
error rate (BER), which in turn will decrease PER. This way,
both the performance of vehicle-to-vehicle wireless links
and that of the overall vehicular wireless network will
subsequently improve.
To validate the effectiveness of our equalization schemes,
we use a rich set of empirical data (about several hours’
experiments) collected from the real-world V2V channels
across a number of driving environments (including highway
and rural) around Pittsburgh, PA. In these experiments, a
transmitter vehicle periodically broadcasted IEEE 802.11p
packets using an HP E4433B Digital Signal Generator
(DSG) with 200 µs between packets. The transmitted
waveforms used BPSK on each subcarrier, with ½ rate
coding. This resulted in the slowest data rate available to the
standard (3 Mbps). The packets were 184 symbols long
(including the SIGNAL field) resulting in packets that were
approximately 1.5 ms in duration. The receiver vehicle
recorded the time-domain I&Q waveforms using an Agilent
89600 Vector Signal Analyzer (VSA). These digital
waveforms were then stored on the computer and loaded into
a software-based receiver built upon a MATLAB® platform.
In addition, the receiver recorded channel statistics including
GPS data. More details of our measurement platform can be
found in [13].
Using this validation methodology, we believe that our
evaluation of various equalization schemes is both realistic
and repeatable. First, unlike synthetic channel models with
artificially constructed waveforms, our validation scheme
engages realistic empirical data collected from field
measurements. Second, our approach uses identical
waveforms for each of the four equalization schemes; thus
we believe that our evaluation can directly compare the
performance of different schemes on the same basis.
Moreover, all of the developed software equalization
schemes use the same receiver front end (i.e., packet
detector, timing acquisition, frequency offset correction, and
 



    


demodulation) while only changing the actual channel
estimation/equalizer blocks. This enables a direct  (1)
comparison of different equalization schemes. Fig. 1 

 
illustrates our software-based receiver. and


    
 

. (2)

Because the bits in the two training symbols are equal, their
N-point DFTs are equal, i.e., X1(k) = X2(k) = X(k). The LS

    

estimate for H(k) is given as follows.

  .
2
(3)
Fig. 1. Our software-based receiver for testing equalization schemes with
actual recorded waveforms. The data in the packet is then equalized using this channel
estimate. For a given received symbol sR[n], the symbol is
IV. CHANNEL ESTIMATION AND EQUALIZATION


first demodulated using the DFT:

    


TECHNIQUES
The IEEE 802.11p standard requires four evenly spaced
pilot subcarriers that are used to track residual frequency
offset between the transmitter and receiver. These pilot
subcarriers are unable to adequately sample the dynamic
channel variation in the V2V setting. In the IEEE 802.11p
standard, the channel estimation is accomplished by sending
two identical training symbols at the beginning of a packet.
The drawback of this method is that the channel will change
considerably over the duration of a packet, thus making the
initial channel estimate obsolete. Therefore, an appropriate
method for tracking the channel and updating the channel
estimate is desired.
A. Least Squares Estimator
As a benchmark, we use a simple Least Squares (LS)
estimator [14] that only uses the preamble at the beginning
of a packet to estimate the channel and subsequently
equalize future symbols. This basic equalizer also uses the
pilots in the packet to correct for residual frequency offset,
which is a side effect of non-perfect frequency offset
estimation from the training preamble. This equalizer
represents the most basic equalization possible, which would
be typical of a commercial 802.11a card. The benefit of this
technique is that it is straightforward and easy to implement
in hardware. Therefore, it is used as a benchmark
equalization technique.
The packet structure of 802.11p is shown in Fig. 2. Here,
the first ten short symbols (t1 through t10) are used for
synchronization, and are each 1.6 µs long. The two 6.4 µs
symbols that follow this (T1 and T2) are identical and are
used for estimating the channel. Because T1 and T2 are
identical, they make use of a longer guard interval (GI2) of
length 3.2 µs. After the training section of the packet, the
data symbols are sent. Each symbol contains a guard interval
(GI) of length 1.6 µs and a data portion of length 6.4 µs. The
first data symbol contains the SIGNAL field, which contains
information about the modulation rate and the packet length.
For LS channel estimation, first the time domain symbols
T1[n] and T2[n] are extracted. Then their N-point Discrete
Fourier Transforms (DFT) are computed as follows.
544
.
 (4)

The received DFT vector is then equalized such that the
 
!
estimate of the transmitted data is
 "   .

(5)
Note that this is a simple, one-tap equalizer for each
subcarrier in the frequency domain. This procedure is
repeated for all symbols in the packet. It is clear that if the
channel changes significantly over the duration of a packet,
the channel estimate H(k) no longer accurately represents
the channel, and equalization could actually distort the
received signal rather than correct it. Thus, an accurate and
efficient means of tracking the channel is crucial.
Fig. 2. The packet structure of IEEE 802.11p [1].
B. Comb Pilot Interpolation
The IEEE 802.11p standard uses subcarriers numbered
from -26 to 26. The subcarrier at zero frequency (DC) is not
used. The standard allocates the use of four pilot subcarriers
(located at subcarriers -21, -7, 7, and 21), which are to be
used for frequency offset tracking. This means that there are
48 subcarriers used for data transmissions, with the unused
subcarriers at -32 through -27 and 27 through 31 used as a
guard band.
In some OFDM schemes, a grid of pilots spaced in both
time and frequency allow the channel estimator to obtain
feedback from the channel so as to equalize the signal.
However, to capture the variation of the channel in both time
and frequency, the pilots must be spaced such that they
fulfill the Nyquist criterion for sampling the channel [15]. In
the 802.11p standard, the pilots used for frequency offset
correction are spaced by 14 subcarriers (2.1875 MHz) in the
frequency domain, which is inadequate for channel
estimation because the V2V channel’s 90% coherence
bandwidth can be smaller than 410 KHz 10% of the time [4].
However, some information about the channel is better than
no information. In this case, it is better to update the channel
estimate with limited feedback rather than to rely on the
channel estimate from the packet preamble that may be
outdated.
In comb pilot interpolation, each symbol is demodulated as
in (4). Then, the received values in the frequency domain at
each of the pilot subcarriers are extracted. These values are
designated by the 4-element vector Yp. The known DFT
values of the sent pilots at these subcarriers are specified by
the standard, and are given by the 4 element vector Xp. The
# 
LS estimate at each pilot subcarrier is then formed as
#   .
# 
(6)
This gives a four element vector that represents evenly
spaced estimates of the channel. To interpolate these
estimates, first endpoints are appended to the vector to
$#  %& "# %& " ,
obtain
(7)
where mHp is the mean of Hp. The mean is used on the
endpoints rather than extrapolation from the subcarriers -21
and 21 for both simplicity and because there is no way of
determining the actual channel response at the edge
frequencies. It was observed through experimentation that
this method obtained more reasonable interpolation results
than extrapolating from the endpoints.
Next, Hp' is passed through an interpolation circuit, which
places L-1 zeros between successive samples in Hp' and
passes the resulting signal through a low-pass filter with
cutoff frequency π/L. Here, L is 14. The output of the
interpolation operation is appropriately trimmed on both
sides to yield an interpolated channel estimate for all 53
subcarriers, designated Hupdate.
After the channel is estimated at a given symbol, the
 
overall channel estimate is appropriately updated so as to
1 1
track the channel. The new estimate at time t is given by
)  *1 , . )
  /#01)2 .
- -
(8)
Here, α is a memory parameter. A larger α implies longer
memory. Note that H0 is the initial channel estimate given
by (3). Once the channel is estimated, the symbol at time t is
,) 
!
equalized
 ",)   .
) 
(9)
This procedure continues until all symbols in the packet
have been equalized.
C. Comb Co-Pilot Interpolation
To update the channel estimate at the subcarriers between
6
pilots, we previously relied upon only the pilot information
and an interpolation result. However, the pilot subcarriers
6 5  1. The weights wk are changed
provided for in the 802.11p standard do not sufficiently
sample the channel in frequency since the channel coherence
bandwidth is generally narrower than the pilot spacing.
Consequently, this results in an inaccurate channel estimate
at the subcarriers that lie between pilots. The alternative is to
use data decision feedback to estimate the channel at these
545
subcarriers. Estimating the channel using this method is
inherently less reliable because such estimation assumes that
the data was demodulated correctly. However, we can
design our receiver to use several approaches to combat this
unreliability:
• Redundancy: we use several data subcarriers to make a
single measurement at a given subcarrier. This increases
the probability that correct channel feedback is at least
partially obtained.
• Averaging: By averaging multiple measurements, we
combine them into a single channel measurement,
reduce the effects of measurement noise, and reduce the
effects of erroneous channel measurements.
• Conservative update rate: If we update our channel
estimate slowly, we put more weight on previous
measurements and do not make drastic changes to the
channel estimate that we use for symbol equalization.
This combats erroneous channel estimates, because an
erroneous channel measurement would have to occur
for several symbols in a row for the overall channel
estimate to be affected. The conservative update rate
also is directly tied to the channel coherence time. If the
update rate is too slow, then the channel will change
faster than the estimate can, which will lead to errors.
Therefore it is important to choose a rate slow enough to
avoid measurement errors, while fast enough to be able
to keep up with the dynamic physical communication
channel.
In the comb copilot interpolation scheme, several
“copilot” subcarriers are formed from data subcarrier
information. These copilots are evenly spaced with the
standard’s pilots such that the interpolation scheme works
properly. Before forming these copilots, a symbol at t must
be equalized with the previous channel estimate (before it is
 
! ",)   ,)
updated), giving
 .
)
(10)
Once this is done, then the channel estimate at a subcarrier k
,) 
may be formed from the bit decision at this subcarrier, or
  ,

(11)
where H(k) is the channel estimate at a data subcarrier, and
X(k) is the decided symbol value, i.e., the complex value in
the constellation plot corresponding to the decided bit(s).
In general, the copilot channel estimate is formed as a
linear combination of channel estimates of the data
subcarriers in its vicinity. The copilot channel estimate at
6
subcarrier λ is formed as
3# 4   5 4  ,
(12)

estimate, and ∑
86
where wk represent weights given to each subcarrier
slightly for different situations. For example, if H(λ+b) for
|b|<|β| are pilot subcarriers, their weight may be increased
relative to the other terms in (12). If H(λ+b) does not exist
(at the edges of the channel) it is excluded from the average
(wλ+b = 0) and the other weights are adjusted accordingly. If
a copilot needs to be formed outside the subcarrier range, a
copilot at -26 or at 26 is used instead at this location (this is
to maintain equal distances between pilots and copilots,
which is necessary for the interpolation). Finally, if a copilot
needs to be formulated at the zero subcarrier location, the
waveform with a DFT, the resulting complex numbers at
each subcarrier position map directly to the points in a
constellation pattern. A sample constellation pattern is
shown in Fig. 4. In (a), all of the demodulated data points for
a packet with no errors are shown. In this case, all of the data

3# 0  0.5,1  0.51.

subcarriers at -1 and 1 can be used, for example, as: could be used to estimate the channel without making errors.
(13) In (b), a packet with errors is shown. If the erroneous data
After the necessary copilots are extracted, the vector Hp/cp is subcarriers (shown in red) are used for channel estimation,
formed from the evenly-spaced copilots and pilots. This is the channel estimate will be unreliable. Therefore, it is
passed through an interpolation circuit as discussed in the important to determine a probabilistic model to determine
previous subsection. Fig. 3 illustrates the comb copilot which data points can be used to safely estimate the channel
interpolation schemes in more detail. Here, the comb pilot without error.
interpolation scheme (a) is compared against two comb
copilot interpolation schemes: one for L=7 (b) and one for
L=3 (c). Note that for the L=3 case, the pilots at subcarriers
at -7 and 7 are not directly used. Instead, copilots are placed
at subcarriers -6 and 6 to maintain an even measurement
spacing. For these cases, extra weight was given to the pilot
subcarriers at -7 and 7 when computing Hcp(6) and Hcp(-6).

Fig. 4. The BPSK constellations in the complex plane for (a) a packet with
no errors, and (b) a packet with errors. Here, a 1 maps to a binary 1 and a -1
maps to a binary 0.

To determine whether a received signal point is reliable or

not, we first model the real part (Pi) of the ith data point in

;<  =<  >< ,

the constellation as
(14)
Fig. 3. Different comb copilot interpolation schemes. Comb pilot
where Ni is normal with mean 0 and variance σN2, and
interpolation is shown in (a). Comb copilot interpolation with a gap of L = 7 models noise and channel effects. Di is a Bernoulli random

1, 5@AB CDEFGF@H@AI 0.5 J

variable, i.e.,
><  ? .
is shown in (b) and with a gap of L = 3 is shown in (c).

,1, 5@AB CDEFGF@H@AI 0.5

After symbol demodulation, copilot formation, and
subsequent interpolation, the estimate Hupdate is formed. As
in the comb pilot interpolation scheme, the channel estimate
is then updated in time by using a moving average shown in
(8). Unlike the comb pilot interpolation scheme, this channel
estimate is used to equalize the next symbol before the
estimate is updated again.
In this work, we use a comb copilot interpolation scheme
that uses the L=3 copilot spacing (this performs better than
L=7). We use a value of β=1 so that each copilot is a
weighted average of 3 channel measurements. Finally, we
(15)
Di represents the BPSK bit. This assumes that the data is
sufficiently scrambled and coded such that the number of 1’s
and 0’s are equal for a given packet. We also assume that Di
and Ni are statistically independent. For each symbol, there
are n=48 received data subcarriers that form a vector P
(composed of each of the individual constellation points Pi).
In order to determine the best threshold for choosing reliable
decisions, we need to determine σN2, the variance of the
elements in the vector N, for each symbol. First we compute
 
1 1
Var(P), the sample variance of the constellation points

KGDL  ;< , %M    ;< , %M ,

use the weights w1=w-1=0.25 and w0=0.5. When appropriate,

we increase the weights for copilot terms that include pilot (16)
subcarriers. < <


1
where the mean mP of the constellation is given by

%M   ;< .
D. Constellation-Aware Data Equalization (CADE)

Rather than relying on fixed data measurements to obtain (17)

data feedback, one would intuitively pick measurement <
points that have a high degree of confidence of being Next, the variance of the elements in the vector D is given
 
1 1
correct. For example, subcarriers with a high probability of by

KGDN  >< , %O    >< , %O



being correct can be used for the channel estimate, whereas

< <
subcarriers with a low probability of being correct can be
 1 , %O ,
(18)
neglected while forming the channel estimate. This method
can be used to formulate a more robust channel estimate.
where mD is the mean of the data points D in the symbol of

KGDN  1 , 0  1.
The foundation of this method relies on the use of BPSK interest. In theory, mD is equal to 0, and
on all data subcarriers, but could be extended to other (19)
constellation schemes. When demodulating the OFDM

546
However, because the sample size is only n=48 points, the Based on these PDFs, thresholds ±q can be developed with
variance of D for a given symbol may not be equal to 1. an associated confidence C that serves as a measure of the
This is because the variance of D is only equal to 1 if there likelihood that the point of interest is correctly demodulated
are equal numbers of 1s and 0s transmitted in a given (from region P0) rather than incorrectly demodulated (from

;
symbol. If this is not the case, then the term E(D) = mD will region P1). Here, the confidence parameter is defined as
[ .
;  ;

1
deviate from 0. The mean of D is given by

%O   >< .
(26)

],1
(20)
^ 
It can be shown that
<
Z
[  \], Z   .
],1 ]1
Because Di is modeled as a Bernoulli random variable, the
^   ^ 
Z Z
distribution of mD is a Binomial. Since Di takes on values -1 (27)
and +1 with probability 0.5, we can show that

; *%O  .  P Q 0.5 ,
Thus, given a desired confidence value C' and the calculated


(21) σN, one can solve for the threshold q. This is done

min|[d , \], Z |.

numerically by solving the optimization problem
where b = 2k-n and k = {0, 1, … , n}. The distribution of mD2
b

(28)

* . 0.5 , S  0
is found to be

2S
It should be noted that q may be solved offline using a given


/2 J, (22)
; R%O  T U
value of C' and incremental values of σN2. Then, lookup




2* . , S  1,2, … 24
tables are generated and are embedded in the receiver.

/2 , S
Therefore, this algorithm maintains a low computational
complexity, as the only parameter that needs to be calculated
where c takes on values from the set {0, 1, … , 24}. during demodulation is σN2.
Next, the variance of the constellation points can be When a packet is received, it is demodulated and
KGDL  KGDY  N  KGDY  KGDN.
written as equalized with the current channel estimate. Like the other
(23) schemes previously discussed, each symbol is used to update
KGDY  Z  KGDL , KGDN.
Solving for σN2, we obtain the channel estimate. An initial version of this channel
(24) estimate update is determined by using the comb pilot

1
Now we may substitute (16) and (18) to obtain interpolation. The variance of the noise (σN2) of the
Z   ;< , %M , 1  %O .


constellation is also estimated. From this estimated variance

(25)
<
and a specified confidence parameter, the threshold
parameter q is determined. All data subcarriers whose real
Note that mD2 is always positive. If an equal number of 1s
parts fall above the thresholds are then used for forming the
and -1s is assumed, mD2 becomes 0. However, the
updated channel estimate. At each of these data subcarriers,
probability density function (PDF) in (24) shows that there is
a channel estimate is formed as in (11) using the bit
a significant probability that this is not the case; therefore,
decisions from the demodulation. In forming Hupdate, a
by assuming that mD2 takes a sufficiently large value, the
simple scheme replaces the channel estimate value in the
estimate of σN2 becomes more conservative. This essentially
initial pilot interpolated estimate with the data derived
means that the determination of the threshold (to be
channel estimate from (11). In a more sophisticated (though
discussed next) is safer. Typically, a value for mD2 can be
more computationally intensive) technique, the initial pilot
determined by looking at its cumulative distribution function
interpolation is not performed; instead, piecewise linear
(CDF) and choosing mD2 such that CDF(mD2) ≈ 1.
interpolation is used to fill in the gaps between the channel
From the above analysis, there are now two clusters of
estimates at the pilot subcarriers and data subcarriers that fall
data: one centered at 1 and the other at -1. Points around
above the threshold. In this work, the former method was
each cluster have a variance of σN2. Using this variance, a
used. Once Hupdate is formed, the channel estimate is updated
threshold ±q may be determined such that data subcarriers
as a moving average as in (8), and is applied to the next
falling to the left or right of these thresholds can be used to
symbol.
aid in channel estimation.
CADE performs well, but its performance is very
There are three regions of interest that characterize the
dependent on the confidence parameter C'. If C' is too low,
received data. First, P0 represents data points that fall above
then q=0 and all data points are used to equalize the channel.
the threshold and are demodulated correctly. P1 represents
This leads to a high error rate, as the channel estimate is
data points that fall above the thresholds but are
updated with a mix of correct and incorrect demodulated
demodulated incorrectly. Finally, P2 represents the rest of
data. As C' increases, q increases. At an optimal C', most of
the data points, which fall between the thresholds. For
the data used for estimation are data that has been received
clarity, these regions are shown in Fig. 5.
correctly. Therefore, performance is quite good, and packet
error rate decreases significantly. If C' is increased beyond
this point, q continues to increase and less data is used to
estimate the channel, until the point at which all of the data
Fig. 5. The three regions that characterize the constellation points. falls below q. At this point in time, performance degrades

547
and the scheme reduces to comb pilot interpolation. These
results can be seen in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6. Packet error rate results for CADE at different moving average
parameter values.
6
6 5  1. It should be noted that nonexistent
Fig. 7. A comparison of CADE and averaged CADE. These plots were
generated by using the best performing moving average parameter (in a
PER sense) at a given confidence parameter.
Another problem with CADE is that making an error in
estimating the channel at a data subcarrier location is very
costly. If an error is made, it can propagate in the channel
estimate for the duration of the packet. To avoid this, the use
of averaging in frequency was explored. Averaging adjacent
  /#01)2 ,
subcarrier estimates helps to reduce the effect of errors. The
intuition behind this is to have multiple measurements of the
channel at a given subcarrier location. When more data
subcarriers are used to form the average, the accuracy
increases, because the probability of making multiple errors
over a block of subcarriers is smaller than the probability of
making an error at a single subcarrier. However, if too many
data subcarriers are used to form the average, then the
resulting estimate will not be as accurate, because the
coherence bandwidth of the channel may be less than the
range of average subcarriers.
Fig. 7 shows the result of frequency averaging the CADE
scheme. First, CADE is plotted with no averaging versus
CADE with averaging. For the CADE scheme, there is a
performance spike (valley in PER) at the optimal confidence
parameter. At this same optimal confidence parameter,
performance of the averaged CADE scheme is actually
degraded by an increase in PER; in fact, the averaged CADE
scheme performs better when using a lower value for C' (and
therefore, more data subcarriers). When plotted, CADE and
548
averaged CADE approach the PER performance of the fixed
threshold (q=0) schemes as the confidence parameter
decreases. These observations led to the conclusion that the
best approach is to use all data subcarriers to formulate a
channel estimate at each symbol, and then to perform
averaging in both time and frequency to improve
performance. This method is formalized in the next section.
E. Spectral Temporal Averaging
The so called Spectral Temporal Averaging (STA)
estimation can be formalized as follows. First, the initial
channel estimate is obtained from the training preamble as in
(3). This initial estimate is applied to the first symbol in the
packet. Once this symbol is demodulated, a channel estimate
,< 
is formed:
<   ,
< 
(29)
where Xi is the decided constellation at symbol i, SR,i is the
demodulated subcarrier values at symbol i, and Hi is the
estimate formed at symbol i.
This estimate is then averaged in frequency. The average
is constructed as a simple moving average, such that the
6
estimate at subcarrier λ is formed as
/#01)2 4   5 < 4  , (30)

where β is an integer parameter that can be modified to
∑86

affect how many terms are included in the average, and
subcarriers are excluded from this averaging operation. For
example, for β=3 and subcarrier 26, only subcarriers 23, 24,
25, and 26 are used in the average, and the weights are
adjusted accordingly. Additionally, the value of Hi(0) is
replaced with an average of the subcarrier -1 (Hi(-1)) and the
subcarrier 1 (Hi(1)) as there is no data transmitted on the
zero subcarrier.
After the frequency averaging is computed for all 52
1 1
subcarriers, the channel estimate is updated using
e"f,)  *1 , . e"f,)
- -
(31)
where α is a moving average parameter in time. Note that
HSTA,0 is the initial channel estimate obtained from the
preamble estimation. The estimate in (31) is then applied to
the next symbol’s equalization, and the process is repeated
until the packet is completely demodulated.
V. RESULTS
We now validate the schemes described in section IV
using the methodology in section III. We do not show results
for CADE, because STA was developed by optimizing
CADE.
First, we present the overall results from the highway and
rural environments in Table 1. Here, we show the results for
the best performing schemes after testing various scheme
parameters (i.e. α, β, and L as applicable).
Next, we analyze the PER against different environmental
variables. For these plots, only packets with valid GPS data
are used. Points are binned with each bin containing 229
points. For highway, this results in 17 bins of 229 points and ground reflection between the two vehicles seen in the
one bin of 227 points. For the rural environment, this results highway environment. The STA scheme has significantly
in 6 bins of 229 points and one bin of 43 points. We first better performance here (28% PER) as opposed to the LS
show the signal to noise ratio (SNR) vs. PER for both the scheme (66% PER). As expected, performance suffers with
highway and rural environments in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9, increased distance. Unlike the highway environment, we see
respectively. For PER = 10%, we see that STA achieves the a linear relationship between distance and PER for the rural
same performance as the LS scheme at an SNR that is 7.6 environment.
dB less and 7.5 dB less for the highway and rural cases,
respectively.
TABLE I
OVERALL PACKET ERROR RATE RESULTS
Highway Rural
Scheme (4,120 packets) (1,417 packets)
LS 41.21% 41.92%
Comb Pilot 25.53% 26.53%
α=12 α=6
Comb Copilot 22.48% 21.38%
L=3, α=4 L=3, α=4
STA 19.64% 19.62%
β= 2, α= 2 β= 2, α= 2

Fig. 10. Distance vs. PER for highway case.

Fig. 8. SNR vs. PER for highway case.

Fig. 11. Distance vs. PER for rural case.

Finally, we show PER against the 90% coherence

i j k\k l \  Δ\m\
j
bandwidth. The coherence bandwidth is computed as

gΔ\  ,
i j k\k l \m\
j (32)

where k\ is the frequency response of the channel. The

Fig. 9. SNR vs. PER for rural case.
Next, we show the PER performance against the distance
between the two cars (Fig. 10 and Fig. 11). For the highway
case, we notice a prominent spike at approximately 100 m
separation. It is believed that this is associated with the
value of Δ\ at which gΔ\falls below 0.9 is known as the
90% coherence bandwidth. This parameter was extracted
from our VSA, which estimated the channel frequency
response at each subcarrier. We then computed the
autocorrelation of the channel response at each subcarrier to
compute the coherence bandwidth. When we examine the
performance of our four schemes against the 90% coherence
bandwidth (Fig. 12 and Fig. 13), we see increases in PER as
expected with decreasing coherence bandwidth. We also see
once again that that STA achieves the best performance.

549
 have been developed clearly help to track the channel better,
and as a result have smaller increases in BER over the
duration of the packet. The data aided techniques (comb
copilot and STA) exhibit a linear increase in BER. Comb
copilot interpolation eventually has a higher BER than comb
pilot interpolation. The better PER performance of comb
copilot interpolation can be explained by the fact that the
first half of the packet experiences a lower BER than the
second half of the packet. This behavior is more easily
corrected than a flatter error rate curve (comb pilot
interpolation) by leveraging 802.11p’s interleaving, coding,
and scrambling mechanisms. The understanding and
improvement of these error correction mechanisms with
different BER distributions is a topic for future research.
Clearly, spectral temporal averaging outperforms the other
schemes.
Fig. 12. 90% Coherence Bandwidth vs. PER for highway case.

Fig. 14. BER plotted against subcarrier number for the different schemes for
Fig. 13. 90% Coherence Bandwidth vs. PER for rural case. the highway scenario.

To gain more insight to the performance of these schemes,

we examine the raw BER, which is defined as the BER of
the data subcarriers without applying any forward error
correction coding. Because there are 184 symbols with 48
BPSK subcarriers per symbol, there are 8,832 bits per
packet. We view BER in both the frequency domain (Fig.
14) and the time domain (Fig. 15) by plotting it against
subcarrier number and against symbol number, respectively.
In the first of these plots, it is apparent that BER always is
the highest between pilot subcarriers, which are located at
subcarriers (-21, -7, 7, and 21). The performance is also
quite poor on the subcarriers on either end of the spectrum.
The LS scheme, which relies on an initial channel estimate
to equalize each packet, is particularly bad here.
Performance improves dramatically by using pilots to update
the channel estimate. We see another subsequent
improvement by adding data feedback via the comb copilot Fig. 15. BER plotted against symbol number for the different schemes for
the highway scenario.
and STA schemes. STA performs considerably better than
the other schemes. Similarly, when viewing BER against
symbol number, we see a dramatic increase in BER over the VI. CONCLUSION
length of the packet with LS equalization. This is primarily A narrow coherence bandwidth and short coherence time
due to the channel estimate expiring due to the short contribute to degraded physical layer performance in V2V
coherence time of the channel. The enhanced techniques that channels. A traditional, preamble based equalization scheme

550
is insufficient for combating the V2V channel effects. Communication (DSRC) Frequency Band,” IEEE Journal on Selected
Areas in Communications, vol.25, no.8, pp.1501-1516, Oct. 2007.
Because the standard does not provide a sufficient means of
[14] Engels, M., Wireless OFDM Systems - How to Make Them Work?,
pilot signal feedback, data must be used to update the Springer-Verlag, 2002.
channel estimate. We have developed several enhanced [15] Van Nee, R.; Prasad, R., OFDM Wireless Multimedia
equalization schemes using the existing pilot subcarriers or Communications, Boston: Artech House, 2000.
using the pilot subcarriers in combination with data
subcarriers. We have tested these schemes on real V2V
waveforms and have shown that adding more reliance on
data to aid in channel estimation improves the packet error
rate, assuming the scheme is well designed (i.e., employs
frequency averaging with reasonable averaging parameters).
The spectral temporal averaging outperforms our other
schemes, and decreases PER significantly. Additionally,
these equalization methods are receiver-centric and will not
require a change to the 802.11p standard.

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