Systems and methods for control of advanced receivers

• US 8,179,946 B2
• Filed: 11/20/2008
• Issued: 05/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 1, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Rambus Inc.
• Inventors: Roberts, Brian Lee, Grobaski, Kenneth C, Narayan, Anand P
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Khai
• Application Number:
  US12/274,551
• Publication Number:
  US 20090141776A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,272 Days
• Field of Search: 375/144, 375/130, 375/148, 375/346, 375/284, 375/285, 370/479, 370/343, 370/335, 370/441, 455/562.1, 455/442, 455/513
• US Class Current: 375/144
• 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

A controller for advanced receivers configures a plurality of advanced receiver modules based on figures of merit computed on the input signal. The controller also selects the appropriate output signal based on figures of merit of either the input or the output signals. The controller decisions can also be made in a bursty manner, where only a subset of the decisions to be made are made at a given time, thereby limiting the processing load of the control processor.

Claims

1. A receiver for signal processing, comprising:

a front-end processor for receiving a signal;

a searcher coupled to the front-end processor for detecting one or more signal paths in the signal;

a selection module for selecting at least one of the one or more signal paths for assignment to a symbol estimator and selecting at least one of a plurality of available sectors for use in interference cancellation or equalization;

a symbol estimator communicatively coupled to the selection module for generating one or more symbol estimates from the at least one of the one or more signal paths; and

a receiver module communicatively coupled to the symbol estimator for generating a substantially interference cancelled signal;

wherein the selection module further comprises at least one of an add threshold, a drop threshold and an override threshold.

2. The receiver in claim 1, wherein the selection module selects the one or more signal paths based at least in part on the strength of the one or more signal paths.

3. The receiver in claim 1, wherein the selection module selects the one or more signal paths sequentially.

4. The receiver in claim 1, wherein the selection module selects the one or more signal paths in parallel.

5. A receiver for signal processing, comprising:

a front-end processor for receiving a signal;

a searcher coupled to the front-end processor for detecting one or more signal paths in the signal;

a selection module for selecting at least one of the one or more signal paths for assignment to a symbol estimator and selecting at least one of a plurality of available sectors for use in interference cancellation or equalization;

a symbol estimator communicatively coupled to the selection module for generating one or more symbol estimates from the at least one of the one or more signal paths; and

a receiver module communicatively coupled to the symbol estimator for generating a substantially interference cancelled signal;

wherein each of the at least one of a plurality of available sectors continues to be used for symbol estimation unless at least one of an override threshold and a time of override is satisfied.

6. A method for processing a signal in a device, comprising;

assigning at least one signal path that is not intended for the device to a tracker;

generating tracking information from said at least one signal path; and

using the tracking information in a symbol estimator for at least one of equalization and cancellation.

7. A receiver for signal processing, comprising:

one or more processing modules each for operating on one or more signal streams to produce an output signal stream;

a selection module coupled to the one or more processing modules for selecting at least one of the output signal streams as a selected output signal stream; and

a post-processing module for producing one or more symbol estimates from the selected output signal stream.

8. The receiver in claim 7, wherein at least one of the one or more processing modules is an equalizer.

9. The receiver in claim 7 , wherein at least one of the one or more processing modules is an interference canceller.

10. The receiver in claim 7, wherein the selection module selects at least one of the output signal streams as a selected output signal stream at least in part based on a figure of merit of the output signal stream.

11. The receiver in claim 7, where the selection module selects at least one of the output signal streams as a selected output signal stream at least in part based on a figure of merit of an input signal stream.

12. A receiver for signal processing, comprising:

a receiver for receiving one or more signal paths;

a signal metric evaluator coupled to a front end of the receiver for generating one or more signal metrics from the one or more signal paths;

a processor for selecting a receiver technique for processing the one or more signal paths based at least in part on at least one of the one or more signal metrics; and

a receiver module coupled to the processor for applying the receiver technique to at least one of the one or more the signal paths.

13. The receiver in claim 12, where the one or more signal metrics comprises strength, traffic statistics and geometry.

14. The receiver in claim 12, where the receiver technique is chosen from Rake, equalizer and interference canceller.