Wireless ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) has been proposed for the next generation multimedia wireless networks. Originally developed for channels with wide bandwidth at high signal-to-noise ratio, ATM in a wireless environment faces the difficult challenge that wireless channels are time varying. The success of wireless ATM, to a great extent, hinges upon the design of adaptive receivers that are able to mitigate time varying channel impairments. This research focuses on adaptive signal processing techniques for channel estimation and equalization in an asynchronous time division multiple access (TDMA) network. The objective of the investigation is to explore new approaches that minimize the overhead associated with the transmission of training signals. By exploiting jointly the structure of the data packet (e.g. ATM cell), the protocol of medium access control, and spatial-temporal diversities of the signal, the investigators are developing new channel estimation and equalization algorithms that have rapid convergence rates and low power VLSI implementation.
