Determining channel characteristics in a space-time architecture wireless communication system having multi-element antennas

A method of determining channel propagation characteristics in a communication system wherein a number of communication channels are defined between a first number of transmit antenna elements associated with a system transmitter and a second number of receive antenna elements associated with a system receiver, comprising:

• selecting a matrix of training signals for transmission from the transmit antenna elements;
• providing information concerning the selected matrix of training signals to the system receiver;
• transmitting the matrix of training signals from the transmit antenna elements to the receive antenna elements in a determined sequence during a defined training signal time interval;
• receiving the transmitted matrix of training signals via the receive antenna elements during said training signal time interval;
• and
• determining member terms of a channel propagation characteristic matrix for use in discriminating signals transmitted from the transmit antenna elements to the receive antenna elements at times other than said training signal time interval, according to the signals received via the receive antenna elements during the training signal time interval and the information relating to the selected matrix of training signals;
• wherein the selecting step comprises selecting the matrix of training signals to correspond to Walsh functions proportional to ±1 valued square-waves.

A method of determining channel propagation characteristics in a communication system wherein a number of communication channels are defined between a first number of transmit antenna elements associated with a system transmitter and a second number of receive antenna elements associated with a system receiver, comprising:

• selecting a matrix of training signals for transmission from the transmit antenna elements;
• providing information concerning the selected matrix of training signals to the system receiver;
• transmitting the matrix of training signals from the transmit antenna elements to the receive antenna elements in a determined sequence during a defined training signal time interval;
• receiving the transmitted matrix of training signals via the receive antenna elements during said training signal time interval;
• and
• determining member terms of a channel propagation characteristic matrix for use in discriminating signals transmitted from the transmit antenna elements to the receive antenna elements at times other than said training signal time interval, according to the signals received via the receive antenna elements during the training signal time interval and the information relating to the selected matrix of training signals;
• wherein the selecting step comprises selecting the matrix of training signals to correspond to columns from a T×T discrete Fourier transform matrix wherein T is a number of symbol intervals defining the training signal time interval.