Apparatus and method for transmitting channel sounding signal in wireless communication system

An apparatus for transmitting a channel sounding signal from a user terminal in a multiple antenna system, the apparatus comprising:

• a channel estimator for estimating a channel for each of a plurality of antennas;
• a receiving (RX) signal power calculator for calculating a RX signal power of each of the antennas by using channel information obtained through the channel estimation;
• and
• an antenna selector for selecting an antenna with the highest RX signal power.

A method for transmitting data from a base station in a multiple antenna system, the method comprising:

• receiving a channel sounding signal transmitted from user terminals through an antenna with a highest receiving (RX) signal power among a plurality of user terminal antennas;
• estimating a channel between a channel sounding signal transmitting antenna of each user terminal and base station antennas by using the received channel sounding signal from each user terminal;
• and
• calculating a beamforming weight for each user terminal by using channel information of each antenna obtained through the channel estimation.

An apparatus for transmitting data from a base station in a multiple antenna system, the apparatus comprising:

• a transmitting (TX) and receiving (RX) switch for receiving a channel sounding signal transmitted from user terminals through an antenna with a highest RX signal power among a plurality of user terminal antennas;
• a channel estimator for estimating a channel between a channel sounding signal transmitting antenna of each user terminal and base station antennas by using the received channel sounding signal from each user terminal;
• and
• a beamforming controller for calculating a beamforming weight for each user terminal by using channel information of each antenna obtained through the channel estimation.