CDMA receiver with antenna array adaptively controlled with combined errors of despread multipath components

A code division multiple access communication receiver comprising:

• a plurality of antennas spaced a correlation distance apart from each other;
• a plurality of despreaders for respectively despreading signals detected by the antennas with a chip sequence assigned to a user station to produce a plurality of despread signals at chip intervals;
• multiply-and-add circuitry for respectively weighting the despread signals by weight coefficients, separating each of the weighted despread signals into a plurality of multipath components which respectively correspond to propagation paths of a signal transmitted from the user station and summing the separated multipath components to produce a plurality of weighted sum signals each representative of the sum of the multipath components of same arrival tine;
• error detection circuitry for detecting a plurality of errors between a symbol output and said plurality of weighted sum signals, and combining said plurality of errors to produce a combined error signal;
• and
• weight control circuitry for producing said weight coefficients from said plurality of despread signals and updating the weight coefficients according to the combined error signal.

A method of processing a spread spectrum signal, comprising the steps of:

• a) receiving signals from a plurality of antennas spaced a correlation distance apart from each other, respectively weighting the received signals with weight coefficients and combining the weighted signals to produce a weighted sum signal;
• b) separating the weighted sum signal into multipath components which respectively correspond to propagation paths of a signal transmitted from a user station;
• c) respectively despreading the separated multipath components with a chip sequence assigned to the user station to produce a plurality of despread signals at symbol intervals;
• d) detecting a plurality of errors between a symbol output and the despread signals and combining said plurality of errors to produce a combined error signal;
• and
• e) detecting correlations between said received signals and the combined error signal to produce said weight coefficients.

A method of processing a spread spectrum signal, comprising the steps of:

• a) receiving signals from a plurality of antennas spaced a correlation distance apart from each other, respectively despreading the received signals with a chip sequence assigned to a user station to produce a plurality of despread signals at chip intervals;
• b) respectively weighting the despread signals by weight coefficients;
• c) separating each of the weighted despread signals into a plurality of multipath components which respectively correspond to propagation paths of a signal transmitted from the user station;
• d) summing the separated multipath components to produce a plurality of weighted sum signals each representative of the sum of the multipath components of same arrival time;
• e) detecting a plurality of errors between a symbol output and said plurality of weighted sum signals and combining said plurality of errors to produce a combined error signal;
• and
• f) detecting correlations between said plurality of despread signals and said combined error signal to produce said weight coefficients.