Patent ID: 7333531
Filing Date: 2008-02-19
Classification: H04B,H04J,H04L

Abstract:
1. A highly bandwidth-efficient communications method, comprising: receiving a received spread signal at a base station having a multi-element antenna array with a first plurality of antenna elements arranged in a spaced vertical direction and a second plurality of antenna elements arranged in a spaced horizontal direction; said received spread signal comprising a first data signal spread over a plurality of discrete tones in accordance with a remote spreading code assigned to a remote unit for a first time period; adaptively despreading the signal received at the base station by using first despreading codes that are based on the characteristics of the received signals at the first plurality of antenna elements of said array and perform vertical beam steering; adaptively despreading the signal received at the base station by using second despreading codes that are based on the characteristics of the received signals at the second plurality of antenna elements of said array to perform horizontal beam steering; spreading a second data signal at the base station with first spreading codes derived from said first despreading codes, that distributes the second data signal over a plurality of discrete tones and the first plurality antenna elements of said array, forming a first spectrally spread signal that is spectrally and spatially spread vertically: spreading the second data signal at the base station with second spreading codes derived from said second despreading codes, that distributes the second data signal over the plurality of discrete tones and the second plurality antenna elements of said array, forming a second spectrally spread signal that is spectrally and spatially spread horizontally; and transmitting said first and second spread signals during a second time period.