Simplified noise estimation and/or beamforming for wireless communications
First Claim
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1. A method for computing beamforming for signals in a communication system comprising:
- receiving a signal having a plurality of tones over a communication channel, some of the plurality of tones being of a first type and some of the plurality of tones being of a second type;
performing channel estimation on the received signal to provide a channel estimate of the communication channel;
estimating noise on the received signal for each of a plurality of the first type of tones to provide a corresponding noise estimate for each of the plurality of the first type of tones; and
computing beamforming for at least one tone of a plurality of the second type of tones based on the channel estimate and based on the noise estimate of at least one of the plurality of the first type of tones that is nearest the at least one tone of the plurality of the second type of tones in the received signal.
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Abstract
A system and method facilitate estimating noise in a received signal. The received signal is formed of a plurality of tones, such as training tones and data tones. Noise is estimated at the training tones, which generally comprise a lesser number of the tones in the received signal than the data tones. The estimated noise at the training tones can be employed to facilitate demodulating and/or decoding data tones in the received signal. In one aspect, the estimated training tone noise can be utilized by a beamformer.
155 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A method for computing beamforming for signals in a communication system comprising:
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receiving a signal having a plurality of tones over a communication channel, some of the plurality of tones being of a first type and some of the plurality of tones being of a second type; performing channel estimation on the received signal to provide a channel estimate of the communication channel; estimating noise on the received signal for each of a plurality of the first type of tones to provide a corresponding noise estimate for each of the plurality of the first type of tones; and computing beamforming for at least one tone of a plurality of the second type of tones based on the channel estimate and based on the noise estimate of at least one of the plurality of the first type of tones that is nearest the at least one tone of the plurality of the second type of tones in the received signal. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A communication receiver configured to compute beamforming for signals in a communication system comprising:
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means for receiving a signal over a communication channel, wherein the signal comprises a plurality of tones, the plurality tones comprising a plurality of a first type of tones and a plurality of second type of tones; means for determining a channel estimate for the communication channel; means for estimating noise for a plurality of the first type of tones in the received signal; and means for computing beamforming for at least one of a plurality of the second type of tones based on the determined channel estimate and the estimated noise of at least one of the plurality of the first type of tones that is nearest a respective one of the plurality of the second type of tones in the received signal. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9)
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10. A communication receiver comprising:
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a tone extractor configured to extract a plurality of first type of tones from a signal received over a communication channel; a channel estimator configured to provide a channel estimate for the communication channel; a noise estimator configured to estimate noise for the extracted plurality of the first type of tones and provide a noise estimate for the plurality of the first type of tones; and a beamformer configured to compute beamforming for a plurality of a second type of tones in the received signal based on the channel estimate and based on the noise estimate of the extracted plurality of the first type of tones that are nearest to respective ones of the second type of tones in the received signal. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A wireless communications system, comprising:
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at least one antenna operative to receive a wireless signal over a communication channel and convert the received signal into a corresponding electrical signal; a preprocessing system operative to process the electronic signal and convert the corresponding electrical into a digital signal and perform desired preprocessing of the digital signal to provide a preprocessed digital signal in the frequency domain having a plurality of tones, some of the plurality of tones being of a first type and others of the plurality of tones being of a second type, the tones of the first type having a fewer number of tones than the tones of the second type; a channel estimator operative to characterize the communication channel and provide a channel estimate thereof; a noise estimator operative to estimate noise for tones of the preprocessed digital signal of the first type and to provide an indication of estimated noise for the tones of the first type; and a beamformer operative to perform beamforming computations for tones of the first preprocessed digital signal of the second type, the beamforming computations employing the channel estimate and the indication of estimated noise for a tone of the first type nearest each respective tone of the second type; and an indexing function that selects an indexed second type of tone from the plurality of the second type of tones for which a current beamforming computation is to be performed; and a noise selection function operative to select one of the plurality of the first type of tones nearest to the indexed second type of tone, the respective beamforming computation for the indexed second type of tone employing the computed noise estimation for the selected one of the plurality of the first type of tones. - View Dependent Claims (18)
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Specification