A Fast-converging Adaptive FIR Technique for

Channel Equalization

Ying Liu
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL, 32816
ying_ucf@yahoo.com
Wasfy B. Mikhael, Fellow, IEEE
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL, 32816
Wasfy.Mikhael@ucf.edu


Abstract Modern advanced hardware technology has made
possible the implementation of sophisticated algorithms. The
Complex Block Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm has been
widely used in adaptive filtering applications. However, the
major drawback of this technique is its dependence on the
appropriate choice of the step size. This paper presents the
Complex Block Conjugate-gradient LMS algorithm with
optimal Individual adaptation of parameters, CBCI-LMS. The
proposed technique generates the optimal individual step size
for each coefficient of the Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter at
each iteration. In addition, the conjugate gradient principle is
employed to find the orthogonal update directions for the
adaptive filter coefficients. The performance of the CBCI-LMS
is tested for adpaiting a channel equalizer. The simulation
results show that the CBCI-LMS exhibits the faster convergence
compared with the Complex Block LMS and the recently
proposed CBC-LMS, while maintaining comparable accuracy.
I. INTRODUCTION
Adaptive signal processing has received considerable
attention in the past several decades [1-5]. Recent advances in
digital signal processing hardware allow the designers to
implement sophisticated adaptive filtering algorithms to
achieve the ever-increasing performance requirements.
The LMS algorithm is widely used in adaptive filter
applications [4, 5]. Its popularity is primarily due to its
simplicity in both theory and implementation. The LMS
algorithm utilizes the steepest descent method to find the filter
weights which minimize the cost function of the square error
in a sample averaged sense within a block of data. The
steepest descent method takes more than one step in the same
direction, in order to update the adaptive filter coefficients. To
overcome this redundancy, the conjugate gradient principle
can be gainfully employed in adaptive filtering applications
[6-8]. The conjugate gradient method employs the orthogonal
search directions to achieve the optimal solution. In general, it
converges faster than the steepest descent method.
Besides the redundancy of the search directions, the LMS
method depends on the convergence factor or step size, which
is typically selected as a fixed constant. A small step size leads
to slow convergence, while a large step size leads to
divergence. Several contributions have been reported to
generate the optimal step size in adaptive signal processing [9-
11].
Instead of the iterative method used in the traditional LMS
approach, the Block Least Mean Square (BLMS) algorithm
uses a block of data to obtain a better estimate of the gradient
of the mean square error within a block of data. The Complex
Block LMS extends the BLMS approach to the complex
signal and system models [12]. The Complex Block LMS has
the inherent limitations of the LMS method regarding the
redundancy of the search directions and the fixed step size.
Recently, a complex adaptive filtering algorithm, CBC-LMS
was proposed [7]. The CBC-LMS has two major
improvements over the Complex Block LMS: the performance
surface is searched in the conjugate gradient direction, and the
improved step size selection technique is given. The step size
in the CBC-LMS is updated at each iteration, but is the same
for all the adaptive filter coefficients.
This paper presents a fast-converging adaptive FIR
technique, CBCI-LMS. The CBCI-LMS employs an optimal
individual step size for each FIR filter coefficient, which is
updated at each iteration. In the simulations, the performance
of the CBCI-LMS method is evaluated for adapting a channel
equalizer. Simulation results confirm the improved
convergence properties exhibited by the CBCI-LMS
compared with the existing complex adaptive algorithms. It is
also shown that the CBCI-LMS yields comparable
Normalized Error Energy (NEE) after convergence.
This paper is organized as follows: Section II illustrates the
block diagram of a channel equalizer. Section III gives the
derivation of the conjugate gradients. In Section IV, the
formulation of the CBCI-LMS algorithm is proposed. Section
V shows the simulation results, compared to the Complex
Block LMS and the CBC-LMS. The conclusion is given in
Section VI.
978-1-4673-2527-1/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE 828
II. BLOCK DIAGRAM OF CHANNEL EQUALIZATION
Figure 1 gives the block diagram of a communication
system employing an adaptive FIR equalizer and using
complex representation.
Complex
Signal
Input
s(k)
Error
Signal
e(k)

Adaptive
filter
w(k)
Unknown
Channel

Noise
n(k)
+
+
+
-
y(k)
x(k)
+
Fig. 1 Block Diagram of Channel Equalization
In Fig. 1, the weight vector of the N-tap FIR filter, w(k), is
given by:
T
N
k w k w k w k )] ( ),... ( ), ( [ ) (
2 1
= w (1)

where the n
th
complex weight at the discrete time index k is
denoted by w
n
(k). x(k) and y(k) are the complex input and
output signals of the adaptive filter, respectively. Additive
noise n(k) is included in x(k). ) (k y is formulated as
) ( ) ( ) ( k k k y
T
x w = (2)

where T represents the transpose, and x(k) is the input vector
given by
T
N k x k x k x k )] 1 ( ),... 1 ( ), ( [ ) ( + = x (3)

s(k) and e(k) are the complex desired and error signals,
respectively. e(k) is given by
) ( ) ( ) ( k y k s k e = (4)
The CBCI-LMS uses the block method to obtain better
estimates of the conjugate gradients. In this paper, the
overlapping block is used, which is shifted by one sample at
each iteration. For a block of L samples, the error vector
) (k
L
e is obtained
) ( ) ( ) ( k k k
L L L
y s e = (5)
where
T
L
L k e k e k e k )] 1 ( ),... 1 ( ), ( [ ) ( + = e (6)
T
L
L k s k s k s k )] 1 ( ),... 1 ( ), ( [ ) ( + = s (7)
T
L
L k y k y k y k )] 1 ( ),... 1 ( ), ( [ ) ( + = y (8)
e
L
(k) can be rewritten using the vector and matrix expression,
) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( k k k k
L L L
w X s e = (9)
where
T
L
L k k k k )] 1 ( ),... 1 ( ), ( [ ) ( + = x x x X (10)
Since the block size L will not be changed once the adaptation
starts, the subscript L is dropped for the simplicity of notation.
III. CONJUGATE GRADIENT DERIVATION
In mathematics, the conjugate gradient principle utilizes
the orthogonal directions to find the optimal solution in the
performance surface [6-8].
Assume w
opt
to be the optimal weight vector which
minimizes the mean square error within a block. d(k) is the
search direction to update the weight vector w(k), given by
T
N
k d k d k d k )] ( ),... ( ), ( [ ) (
2 1
= d (11)
err(k) denotes the error between the optimal weight w
opt
, and
the current weight w(k), given by
) ( ) (
opt
k k rr w w e = (12)
To derive the search direction, the error vector at the (k+1)
th

iteration, err(k+1), should be orthogonal to the search
direction at the k
th
iteration, d(k). In the complex domain, this
relation is expressed as
d
H
(k)err(k+1) = 0 (13)
where H represents the Hermitian transpose. Unfortunately,
d(k) could not be derived based on (13).
A practical approach to solve this problem is to replace the
orthogonality condition with the A-orthogonality [6]. By the
definition of A-orthogonality, d
H
(k) and err(k+1) satisfy the
relation as follows,
d
H
(k)Aerr(k+1) = 0 (14)
where A is a square, symmetric, positive-definite matrix.
Assume r
R
(k) and r
I
(k) to be the negative gradients of the
mean square error with respect to the real and imaginary parts
of w(k), w
R
(k) and w
I
(k), respectively, given by:
)] ( ) ( ) ( ) ( [
1
) (
)} ( ) ( { 1
) (
*
k k k k
L k
k k
L
k
H T
R
H
R
e X e X
w
e e
r + =
c
c
=
)] ( ) ( Re[
2
k k
L
H
e X = (15)
)] ( ) ( ) ( ) ( [
1
) (
)} ( ) ( { 1
) (
*
k k j k k j
L k
k k
L
k
H T
I
H
I
e X e X
w
e e
r =
c
c
=
)] ( ) ( Im[
2
k k
L
H
e X = (16)
where Re[.] and Im[.] denote the real and imaginary
components of a complex-valued quantity, respectively.
Therefore, the residual vector or the negative gradient, r(k), is
given by
) ( ) (
2
) ( ) ( ) ( k k
L
k j k = k
H
I R
e X r r r = + (17)
Finally, the complex conjugate gradients are formulated
by the following equations [7].
) 0 ( ) 0 ( r d = (18)

,... 2 , 1
) 1 ( ) 1 (
) ( ) (
) ( =


= k
k k
k k
k
H
H
r r
r r
| (19)

,... 2 , 1 ), 1 ( ) ( ) ( ) ( = + = k k k k k d r d | (20)
After ) (k d is calculated, the diagonal matrix of the search
direction, ) (k D , can be obtained as follows:
(
(
(
(
(
(

=
) ( 0 0 0
0 ) ( 0 0
0 0 ) ( 0
0 0 0 ) (
) (
3
2
1
k d
k d
k d
k d
k
N

D (21)
829
IV. CBCI-LMS FORMULATION
In this section, the complex conjugate directions derived
in the previous section are employed to develop the proposed
CBCI-LMS algorithm.
As mentioned previously, the proposed CBCI-LMS
algorithm employs the individual convergence factor for each
weight of the adaptive filter. The update formula of ) (k w is
given by:
) ( ) ( ) ( ) 1 ( k k k = k d w w + + (22)
where the step size matrix ) (k is a real-valued diagonal
matrix, given by
(
(
(
(
(
(

=
) ( 0 0 0
0 ) ( 0 0
0 0 ) ( 0
0 0 0 ) (
) (
3
2
1
k
k
k
k
k
N
o
o
o
o

(23)
Its diagonal elements compose the step size vector ) (k , as
follows:
T
N
k k k k )] ( ),... ( ), ( [ ) (
2 1
o o o = (24)
The only issue left here is searching for the appropriate
) (k or ) (k , such that the mean square error in the next
iteration, {e
H
(k+1)e(k+1)/L}, is minimized. Employing the
complex Taylor series expansion [7], the error of the (k+1)
th

block, e(k +1), can be expressed in terms of e(k), and the
derivatives of e(k) with respect to the current filter weights,
w(k), as follows,

=
A
c
c
+ = +
N
l
l
l
k w
k w
k
k k
1
) (
) (
) (
) ( ) 1 (
e
e e

... ) ( ) (
) ( ) (
) (
! 2
1
1 1
2
+ A A
c c
c
+

= =
k w k w
k w k w
k
n
N
m
N
n
m
n m
e
(25)
where
) ( ) 1 ( ) ( k w k w k w
l l l
+ = A , k = 1, 2, , N (26)
Because the error vector ) (k e given by (9) is linear to the
weight vector w(k), the derivatives higher than the first order
in (25) are all equal to zero. Thus, (25) becomes

=
A
c
c
+ = +
N
l
l
l
k w
k w
k
k k
1
) (
) (
) (
) ( ) 1 (
e
e e
(27)
Substituting (9) and (22) to (27), the following is obtained as,
) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) 1 ( k k k k k d X e e = + (28)
For each convergence factor
n
(k), the cost function
{e
H
(k+1)e(k+1)/L} is minimized. In another word, the
following condition must be satisfied:
N n
k
L k k
n
H
,..., 2 , 1 , 0
) (
} / ) 1 ( ) 1 ( {
= =
c
+ + c
o
e e
(29)
Finally, the formula of the step size vector ) (k is
derived,
-1
)] ( ) ( ) ( ) ( [ ) ( k k k k k
H H
D X X D =
)] ( ) ( ) ( Re[ k k k
H H
e X D (30)
where the notation
1
[.]

denotes the inverse of a square matrix.

Then, the step size matrix ) (k can be obtained from ) (k
according to (23).
V. COMPUTER SIMULATIONS
In this section, the performance of the CBCI-LMS
algorithm is tested to equalize a complex channel. The results
are compared to those obtained from the Complex Block
LMS and the CBC-LMS. The Complex Block LMS
algorithm begins to diverge if the value of the fixed step size
is larger than 0.05. Hence, in the simulations, is chosen to
be 0.05 and 0.03 for the Complex Block LMS. The
simulation parameters are set up as follows. The adaptive
filter has N=10 coefficients. The input to the unknown
channel, s(k), is the zero-mean complex white Gaussian
signal. The unknown channel has the transfer function,
F(z) = (-0.8324 + 0.9238i) + (0.0388 + 0.1498i) z
-1

+ (-0.0227 - 0.0280i) z
-2

Simulations have been performed with different values of
L and SNR. The convergence accuracy, expressed in terms of
the Normalized Error Energy (NEE), is defined as
) ( ) (
) ( ) (
) ( NEE
k k
k k
k
H
H
s s
e e
= (30)

Fig. 2 Convergence with SNR=30dB, and L=18

Fig. 3 Convergence with SNR=30, and L=36
830

Fig. 4 Number of iterations to converge vs. SNR with L=36
In Fig. 2, NEE vs. the iteration number when L=18, and
the input SNR = 30 dB is shown. The NEE vs. the iteration
number when L=36, and the input SNR = 30 dB is plotted in
Fig. 3. Figure 4 compares the convergence speed of the
CBCI-LMS, the CBC-LMS and the Complex Block LMS,
according to different input SNR values. The block size for
the simulation in Fig. 4 is 36. All the results are averaged
over 100 Monte Carlo runs.
All the simulation graphs indicate that the CBCI-LMS
algorithm converges faster than the other two adaptive
algorithms, for the wide range of simulation parameters.
Figures 2 and 3 show that all the three techniques converge
with the residual comparable to the additive noise as
indicated by the NEE value after convergence. When the
block size L=36, the convergence curve is smoother and the
residual NEE is lower. That is because when the block size L
increases, all the three algorithms compute better estimates of
the gradients. However, to achieve this lower lever of NEE,
more iterations are required for convergence.
Figure 4 indicates that for all the three adaptive methods,
when the input SNR increases, the number of required
iterations for convergence increases. With a higher SNR,
these algorithms yield lower residual NEE values, which
require more iterations to converge as discussed above. It is
clear that among the three algorithms, the CBCI-LMS is least
affected by the SNR value in terms of the convergence speed.
It converges within 5 iterations under all the different SNR
conditions.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a novel complex adaptive filtering algorithm,
CBCI-LMS is presented. This technique applies the conjugate
gradient principle to find the orthogonal search directions for
minimizing the mean square error within a block of data. In
addition, along each conjugate gradient direction, an optimal
step size is calculated from system signals for each filter
coefficient at each iteration. The performance of the CBCI-
LMS is evaluated to design an adaptive equalizer modeled as a
9
th
order FIR filter. Simulation results confirm the excellent
convergence speed as well as the accuracy of the proposed
CBCI-LMS.
REFERENCES
[1] Widrow, B.; Stearns, S.D., Adaptive Signal Processing, Prentice-Hall,
1985.
[2] de Lamare, R.C.; Sampaio-Neto, R., "Reduced-Rank Adaptive Filtering
Based on Joint Iterative Optimization of Adaptive Filters," in IEEE
Signal Processing Letters, vol.14, no.12, pp.980-983, Dec. 2007.
[3] Duel-Hallen, A., "Fading Channel Prediction for Mobile Radio
Adaptive Transmission Systems," in Proceedings of the IEEE, vol.95,
no.12, pp.2299-2313, Dec. 2007.
[4] Kohli, A.K.; Mehra, D.K., "Tracking of time-varying channels using
two-step LMS-type adaptive algorithm," in IEEE Transactions on
Signal Processing, vol.54, no.7, pp.2606-2615, July 2006.
[5] King, P.R.; Brown, T.W.C.; Kyrgiazos, A.; Evans, B.G., "Empirical-
Stochastic LMS-MIMO Channel Model Implementation and
Validation," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,
vol.60, no.2, pp.606-614, Feb.2012.
[6] Shewchuk, J.R., An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method
Without the Agonizing Pain, August 1994.
[7] Liu, Y.; Ranganathan, R.; Hunter, M.T.; Mikhael, W.B., Complex
Adaptive LMS Algorithm Employing the Conjugate Gradient Principle
for Channel Estimation and Equalization, in Circuits, Systems, and
Signal Processing, 22 November 2011, pp. 1-21, doi:10.1007/s00034-
011- 9368- 8.
[8] Scharf, L.L.; Chong, E.K.P.; Zoltowski, M.D.; Goldstein, J.S.; Reed,
I.S., "Subspace Expansion and the Equivalence of Conjugate Direction
and Multistage Wiener Filters," in IEEE Transactions on Signal
Processing, vol.56, no.10, pp.5013-5019, Oct. 2008.
[9] Liu, Y.; Ranganathan, R.; Hunter, M.T.; Mikhael, W.B.; Yang, T.T.,
"Optimal block adaptive I/Q mismatch compensation based on
circularity," in 53rd IEEE International Midwest Symposium on
Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), 2010, pp.320-323, 1-4 Aug. 2010.
[10] Chen, Y; Han, D.; Qi, L., "New ALS Methods With Extrapolating
Search Directions and Optimal Step Size for Complex-Valued Tensor
Decompositions," in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, , vol.59,
no.12, pp.5888-5898, Dec. 2011.
[11] Mikhael, W.; Wu, F., "Fast algorithms for block FIR adaptive digital
filtering," in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, vol.34, no.10,
pp. 1152- 1160, Oct 1987.
[12] Zia-Chahabi, O.; Le Bidan, R.; Morvan, M.; Laot, C., "Efficient
Frequency-Domain Implementation of Block-LMS/CMA Fractionally
Spaced Equalization for Coherent Optical Communications," in IEEE
Photonics Technology Letters, vol.23, no.22, pp.1697-1699, Nov.15,
2011.

831