Method and apparatus for symbol alignment in diversity signal reception

A receiver circuit configured for symbol aligning diversity signals in a communication receiver, said receiver circuit comprising one or more processing circuits configured to:

• generate diversity sample sets for a received signal;
• hypothesize two or more relative symbol alignments for the diversity sample sets;
• and
• jointly determine a preferred relative symbol alignment and a preferred synchronization position for the diversity sample sets by evaluating a function that is dependent on relative symbol alignment and synchronization position according to the hypothesized relative symbol alignments and a number of candidate synchronization positions.

A wireless communication device comprising:

• a communication receiver;
• and
• a receiver circuit included in or associated with the communication receiver, said receiver circuit configured for symbol aligning diversity signals in the communication receiver and comprising one or more processing circuits configured to:
• generate diversity sample sets for a received signal;
• hypothesize two or more relative symbol alignments for the diversity sample sets;
• and
• jointly determine a preferred relative symbol alignment and a preferred synchronization position for the diversity sample sets by evaluating a function that is dependent on relative symbol alignment and synchronization position according to the hypothesized relative symbol alignments and a number of candidate synchronization positions.

A method of symbol aligning diversity signals in a communication receiver comprising:

• generating diversity sample sets for a received signal;
• hypothesizing two or more relative symbol alignments for the diversity sample sets;
• determining correlation values for the diversity sample sets relative to all or part of a known training sequence over a synchronization window, for different combinations of the two or more relative symbol alignments and one or more candidate synchronization positions;
• and
• identifying the combined relative symbol alignment and synchronization position selection that yields a highest correlation value.