Finite-State Markov Modeling of Fading Channels

Wireless communication systems that operate through fading channels have become more diverse and complex. In the last ten years, there has been a growing interest for research and development of advanced wireless communications systems that employ multicarrier (MC) techniques. So far, applications of FSMC models for fading channels has been mainly limited to single carrier (SC) communications with very few exceptions [24], [47]. FSMC models are particulary suitable to represent and estimate the relatively fast flat-fading channel gain in each subcarrier. An unexplored avenue for research is to find appropriate FSMC models to represent MC fading channels. However, the number of TV-FFC gains to be modeled in the MC system is often much higher than in a SC system and a major challenge would be to keep the number of FSMC states to computationally manageable levels.