Assessment of delay estimation quality using interference estimates
AssigneeTelefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
InventorAndres Reial
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Method and system are disclosed for detecting a situation where it is likely that additional multipath components are available in the channel, but are not included in the RAKE processing. In some embodiments, the invention uses the interference estimates for all RAKE fingers associated with tracked multipath components to detect the fraction of the available signal energy that is captured by the path searcher. The invention provides an activation signal to the path searcher if the fraction of the available power that is captured by the tracked paths falls below a predefined threshold.
Claims20
A method of scheduling a multipath search of a channel in a RAKE receiver, the method comprising:
- estimating an average interference over a predefined time interval for each RAKE finger assigned a multipath component;
- summing the average interference estimates from the RAKE fingers;
- estimating a total interference plus noise for the channel;
- determining a figure of merit representing a fractional received signal power for the channel based on the summed average interference estimates and the total interference plus noise estimate;
- and
- initiating a multipath search if the figure of merit is below a predefined threshold.
A RAKE receiver in a mobile communication system, comprising:
- a path searcher module capable of searching a channel for multipath components;
- a RAKE finger module configured to assign a RAKE finger to each multipath component found by the path searcher module;
- an interference module capable of estimating an average interference over a predefined time interval for each RAKE finger assigned a multipath component and a total interference plus noise for the channel;
- and
- a control unit configured to control the path searcher module based on the average interference estimates from the interference module, the control unit including an interference estimation algorithm designed to:
- sum the average interference estimates for the RAKE fingers;
- determine a figure of merit representing a fractional received signal power for the channel based on the summed average interference estimates and the total interference plus noise estimate;
- and
- initiate a multipath component search if the figure of merit is below a predefined threshold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.