Channel estimation for low-overhead communication in a network

A station comprising:

• one or more antennas capable of coupling to a shared medium and configured to receive a waveform from a transmitting station, the waveform including at least a first symbol, having a predetermined symbol length, comprising a first set of frequency components at predetermined carrier frequencies modulated with preamble information and a second set of frequency components at predetermined carrier frequencies modulated with information, with the carrier frequencies of the first and second sets of frequency components being integral multiples of a frequency interval determined by the inverse of the symbol length, wherein each of the one or more antennas receive at least some carrier frequencies from each of the first and second sets;
• a symbol processing module configured to
• monitor the shared medium to detect a start of the first symbol of the waveform at one of multiple time slot boundaries, and
• periodically sample, after each of multiple time slot boundaries, a series of values received at the one or more antennas over the shared medium starting at a time associated with the beginning of a most recent time slot boundaryl;
• and
• a demodulator/decoder module configured to:
• process the sampled values from the first symbol received by the one or more antennas based on channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components to decode information encoded on a first subset of the second set of frequency components, and
• process the sampled values from the first symbol received by the one or more antennas based on channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components and the first subset of the second set of frequency components to decode information encoded on a second subset of the second set of frequency components.

A method, comprising:

• receiving, at a receiving station having one or more antennas coupled to a shared medium, a waveform from a transmitting station via the one or more antennas, the waveform including at least a first symbol comprising a first set of frequency components at predetermined carrier frequencies modulated with preamble information and a second set of frequency components at predetermined carrier frequencies modulated with information, the carrier frequencies of the first and second sets of frequency components being orthogonal;
• sampling a series of values of the received waveform at the one or more antennas starting at a time associated with the beginning of a time slot boundary;
• processing the sampled values from the first symbol received by the one or more antennas based on channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components to decode information encoded on a first subset of the second set of frequency components;
• and
• processing the sampled values from the first symbol received by the one or more antennas based on channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components and the first subset of the second set of frequency components to decode information encoded on a second subset of the second set of frequency components.

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing computer program code, the computer program code comprising instructions which when executed by a processor of a device cause the device to:

• receive a waveform from a transmitting station via one or more antennas coupled to shared medium, the waveform including at least a first symbol comprising a first set of frequency components at predetermined carrier frequencies modulated with preamble information and a second set of frequency components at predetermined carrier frequencies modulated with information, the carrier frequencies of the first and second sets of frequency components being orthogonal;
• sample a series of values of the received waveform at the one or more antennas starting at a time associated with the beginning of a time slot boundary;
• process the sampled values from the first symbol received by the one or more antennas based on channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components to decode information encoded on a first subset of the second set of frequency components;
• and
• process the sampled values from the first symbol received by the one or more antennas based on channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components and the first subset of the second set of frequency components to decode information encoded on a second subset of the second set of frequency components.