In the first part, the topic of average channel capacity for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) under Rayleigh, Rician, Nakagami-m, Hoyt, Weibull and Lognormal fading is addressed. With the assumption that channel state information is known, we deal with a lower bound for the capacity and find closed computable forms for Rician fading without diversity and with Maximum Ratio Combining diversity at the receiver. Approximate expressions are also provided for the capacity lower bound in the case of high Signal to Noise Ratio. This thesis presents two simplified Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) channel estimators to be used in OFDM systems under frequency selective slowly varying Rayleigh fading. Both estimators use parametric models, where the first model assumes exponential frequency domain correlation while the second model is based on the assumption of exponential power delay profile. Expressions for the mean square error of estimations are derived and the relation between the correlation of subchannel taps and error variance is investigated. Dependencies of the proposed estimators&rsquo / performances on the model parameter and noise variance estimation errors are analyzed. We also provide approximations on the estimators&rsquo / algorithms in order to make the estimators practical. Finally, we investigate SER performance of the simplified MAP estimator based on exponential power delay profile assumption used for OFDM systems with QPSK modulation. The results indicate that the proposed estimator performance is always better than that of the ML estimator, and as the subchannel correlation increases the performance comes closer to that of perfectly estimated channel case.

PN code tracking plays a very important role in CDMA communication systems. In literature, the influences of multipath fading and of multiuser interference on PN code tracking are studied separately. The multipath fading influence is mitigated by combining a rake receiver and a channel estimator in the Delay-Locked Loop (DLL). The multiuser interference is overcome by incorporating a data estimator into the DLL. In the downlink, PN code tracking may suffer from the multipath fading influence. However, the multipath fading and the multiuser interference influences exist in the uplink. Unfortunately, sole use of the aforementioned methods cannot solve out both influences simultaneously. In this thesis, two new Coherent Decision-Directed Delay-Locked Loop (CDD-DLL) PN-Code tracking schemes are developed and either can overcome both influences. First, a channel and a data estimators are incorporated into the DLL inherent with a rake receiver. This new scheme works properly in an environment with multipath fading and multiuser interference. Second, the original CDD-DLL is combined with a multipath interference canceller (MPI) to reduce both influences. Analytical results are derived for the two schemes proposed and are validated with numerical simulations. Simulation results show that the conventional DLLs working in a multipath fading and multiuser interference environment can be significantly improved using the new schemes. Moreover, the latter outperforms the former because the multipath interference is cancelled completely.