Mobile speed estimation for 3G mobile radio systems using the normalized autocovariance function

In cellular mobile radio systems, determination of the speed of the mobile is of an essential importance for the optimization of receiver algorithms. This paper describes a method for estimating the speed of a mobile wireless terminal using the normalized autocovariance of the power of the received signal. The presented algorithm can be deployed in both the mobile terminal and the base station. Existing methods based on autocorrelations only make the distinction between slow and fast mobiles. Furthermore, they are sensitive to the number of channel taps. By using the normalized autocovariance function the speed estimation can achieve much better results in a broad range of mobile radio environments. We show how to derive the speed information from the normalized autocovariance of the power of the received signal assuming a multipath Rayleigh fading channel model. We evaluate the performance of the proposed speed estimation method in different channel configurations through simulation results in the particular case of a WCDMA-FDD system.