Apparatus and Method for Channel Estimation in a Wireless Communications System

A user equipment (UE) configure to perform channel estimation in a wireless communications network system, said UE comprising:

• a receiver circuit configured to receive a plurality of consecutive physical resource blocks from a radio base station;
• a channel estimator configured to estimate a channel coefficient of each received physical resource block;
• a calculator circuit configured to calculate for each two adjacent physical resource blocks, a difference between estimated channel coefficients of the two adjacent physical resource blocks;
• a comparator circuit configured to compare each calculated difference with a predefined threshold value;
• and
• an assembler circuit configured to group physical resource blocks for which said calculated difference is less than or equal to the predefined threshold value;
• wherein the channel estimator is further configured to perform a group-wise channel estimation on a group comprising physical resource blocks for which said calculated difference is less than or equal to the predefined threshold and to further perform per physical resource block channel estimation on each remaining physical resource block.

A method, in a user equipment (UE), for channel estimation in a wireless communications network system, said method comprising:

• receiving a plurality of consecutive physical resource blocks from a radio base station;
• estimating a channel coefficient of each received physical resource block;
• calculating for each two adjacent physical resource blocks, a difference between estimated channel coefficients of the two adjacent physical resource blocks;
• comparing each difference with a predefined threshold value;
• grouping physical resource blocks for which said difference is less than or equal to the predefined threshold value;
• and
• performing a group-wise channel estimation on a group comprising physical resource blocks for which said difference is less than the predefined threshold value and performing per physical resource block channel estimation on each remaining physical resource block.

A tangible computer-usable medium comprising computer program code stored thereon, wherein said computer program code is configured to, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• estimate a channel coefficient of each of a plurality of consecutive physical resource blocks received from a base station by a receiver associated with said processor;
• calculate, for each two adjacent physical resource blocks, a difference between estimated channel coefficients of the two adjacent physical resource blocks;
• compare each difference with a predefined threshold value;
• group physical resource blocks for which said difference is less than or equal to the predefined threshold value;
• and
• perform a group-wise channel estimation on a group comprising physical resource blocks for which said difference is less than the predefined threshold value and perform per physical resource block channel estimation on each remaining physical resource block.