Rake Receiver

• US 20110002426A1
• Filed: 12/23/2009
• Published: 01/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mindspeed Technologies UK Limited (MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Muirhead, David Stuart
• Application Number:
  US12/645,689
• Publication Number:
  US 20110002426A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/347
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/1081 Reduction of multipath noise by equalising H04B7/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/7115 Constructive combining of multi-path signals, i.e. RAKE receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/7117 Selection, re-selection, allocation or re-allocation of paths to fingers, e.g. timing offset control of allocated fingers

Abstract

There is provided a rake receiver for a femtocell base station, the rake receiver being for use in receiving a multipath signal, the rake receiver comprising a plurality of fingers, and wherein the rake receiver is adapted to assign multiple fingers to the same path in the multipath signal.

Claims

1. A rake receiver for a femtocell base station, the rake receiver being for use in receiving a multipath signal, the rake receiver comprising a plurality of fingers, and wherein the rake receiver is adapted to assign multiple fingers to the same path in the multipath signal.

2. The rake receiver as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a coarse timing searcher that is adapted to identify the paths in the received multipath signal.

3. The rake receiver as claimed in claim 2, wherein the coarse timing searcher identifies the paths by detecting signal peaks in the received multipath signal.

4. The rake receiver as claimed in claim 3, wherein the coarse timing searcher detects two signal peaks per path from the data samples in the received multipath signal in the event that the multipath signal is sub-optimally sampled.

5. The rake receiver as claimed in claim 4, wherein the rake receiver is adapted to assign a finger to each of the detected signal peaks for at least one of the identified paths.

6. The rake receiver as claimed in claim 5, further comprising a control block for receiving an output from the coarse timing searcher indicating the detected paths and for controlling the assignment of fingers to the detected paths.

7. The rake receiver as claimed in claim 1, wherein the output of each of the fingers is combined to produce a composite signal.

8. The rake receiver as claimed in claim 1, wherein each finger is adapted to perform delay and phase equalisation on the path assigned thereto.

9. The rake receiver as claimed in claim 1, wherein the rake receiver is for use in a 3GPP UMTS communication network.

10. A femtocell base station comprising a rake receiver as claimed claim 1.

11. A user equipment comprising a rake receiver for use in receiving a multipath signal, the rake receiver comprising a plurality of fingers, and wherein the rake receiver is adapted to assign multiple fingers to the same path in the multipath signal when the user equipment is communicating with a femtocell base station.

12. The user equipment as claimed in claim 11, wherein the rake receiver is adapted to assign a single finger to each path in the multipath signal when the user equipment is communicating with a microcell or macrocell base station.

13. (canceled)