Patent Abstract:
A method of estimating a symbol that has been transmitted into a channel connecting a modulator for producing modulation symbols and an equaliser, wherein a channel estimate describes said channel and the method comprises: calculating a metric for each of a number of hypotheses of a sequence commencing with the symbol under estimation followed by a number of subsequently transmitted symbols, each symbol in the sequence occupying a respective node of the sequence; and deeming the symbol at the beginning of the hypothesis that has the best metric to be the symbol under estimation; wherein calculating a metric for a given hypothesis comprises: calculating a discrepancy metric at each node of the given hypothesis; and combining the discrepancy metrics of nodes in the given hypothesis to produce the metric; and wherein a discrepancy metric for a given node of a given hypothesis is an assessment of the difference between: a sample received from said channel at a time point corresponding to said given node; and a sample that would be received at that time point if said channel estimate were acting on a model signal comprising the symbols of the given hypothesis up to the given node preceded by any estimates of symbols transmitted into the channel immediately prior to said time point as may be required to fill the estimated channel. The invention also relates to corresponding apparatus.

Full Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
     The invention relates to techniques for estimating symbols of a signal that has been sent to a receiver from a transmitter. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Many techniques exist for analysing a received communication purporting to represent a train of symbols and estimating what those symbols might be. For example, Viterbi equalisers and Decision Feedback Equalisers are technologies that have been employed to remove Inter Symbol Interference from the received signal (equalisation) and allow symbol estimation in the context of wireless telecommunications (e.g. in accordance with the 3GPP standards). 
     BRIEF SUMMARY 
     The invention is defined in the appended claims, to which reference should now be made. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       By way of example only, certain embodiments of the invention will now be described by reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: 
         FIG. 1  illustrates a mathematical model of a transmitter communicating with a receiver; 
         FIG. 2  illustrates the symbol constellation of the 8PSK modulation scheme; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates schematically certain elements within the equaliser shown in  FIG. 1 ; and 
         FIG. 4  is a tree diagram illustrating possible hypotheses for a test vector employed by the equaliser of  FIG. 3 . 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       FIG. 1  shows a mathematical model of a node B,  5 , communicating with a UE  6 , such as a cellular telephone. A stream of information bits  10  that is to be sent from the node B to the UE is applied to a modulator  12  within the node B. The modulator  12 , in a known fashion, encodes the information bits  10  into a series of symbols selected from the constellation diagram of the modulation scheme that the modulator is using. In this example, the modulator uses the 8PSK modulation scheme illustrated in  FIG. 2 , which has a constellation of eight modulation symbols σ 0  to σ 7  spaced equally around a circle centred on the origin of the IQ plane. 
     According to the model shown in  FIG. 1 , the stream of symbols s produced by the modulator  12  reaches an equaliser  14  in the UE as a stream of received samples r via an FIR filter  16  having L taps. The signal r is affected by noise z, which is shown as being added to the output of the filter  16  at adder  18 . 
     The filter  16  represents two filtering processes. The first of these filtering processes represents the physical radio channel between the node B and the UE and describes, inter alia, multipath propagation between the node B and the UE, transmission filtering performed in the node B and reception filtering performed in the UE. The second filtering process that in this example is taken into account by filter  16  is a feed forward filtering process that occurs in the UE at a point upstream from the equaliser  14 . In brief, the purpose of this feed forward filtering operation is to condition the impulse response estimate of the aforementioned physical radio channel to improve the performance of the equaliser. Examples of such feed-forward filters can be Whitened Matched Filters (WMF) to make the channel minimum phase, or usual feed-forward filters designed for MMSE-DFE or ZF-DFE equalisers. 
     The signals in the model of  FIG. 1  are digital and comprise streams of samples. For simplicity, it is assumed that the sampling rate of the signals in  FIG. 1  is equal to the rate of production of symbols by the modulator  12 . That is to say, it is assumed that the signals in  FIG. 1  are sampled at the symbol rate. 
       FIG. 1  shows the position when the modulator  12  is emitting the n th  symbol s n  of signal s. Accordingly, the other signals within  FIG. 1  bear the same subscript n denoting the current time point, n. Mathematically speaking then, the output of the propagation channel model at time n is: 
                       r   ~     n     =       ∑     i   =   0       λ   -   1       ⁢           ⁢       s     n   -   i       ·     f   i             
                     
where the f i  values are the tap coefficients of the FIR filter representing multipath propagation and λ is the length of filter (hence with memory λ−1).
 
     The specifications of the feed forward filter that FIR filter  16  in part describes are known to the UE  6  since the feed forward filter forms part of, and is configured by, the UE. Also, the UE is able to make estimates of the impulse response of the physical radio channel into which the signal s is transmitted. Many known schemes exist for estimating a channel impulse response, as will be apparent to the skilled person. Using the specification of the feed forward filter and an estimate of the impulse response of the physical radio channel, the UE is able to calculate, in a known manner, a set of tap coefficients g i  (where i=0 to L−1) for an FIR filter representing filter  16  where L is the length of filter (hence with memory L−1). Mathematically speaking then, the input to the equaliser  14  at time n is: 
     
       
         
           
             
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       FIG. 3  shows the equaliser  14  in more detail. The signal r is stored into a buffer  20  for use in producing an estimate ŝ of symbol stream s. A metric calculation unit  22  communicates with the buffer  20  via a bus  24  to enable the metric calculation unit  22  to retrieve such samples of signal r as it from time to time requires in the performance of its calculations (which will be described later). The metric calculation unit  22  is also connected to a selector unit  28  by another bus  26 , for the purpose of supplying the selector unit  28  with sets of graded hypotheses (whose nature will be explained shortly). The selector unit  28  uses the sets of graded hypotheses to generate the signal ŝ which exits the equaliser  14  for supply, ultimately, to an information sink but which is also fed back to the metric calculation unit  22 . The information sink (not shown) could be, for example, an audio codec for driving a loudspeaker in the UE. 
     The equaliser  14  estimates the symbols of signal s sequentially, in order of increasing n. The process for generating ŝ n , the n th  symbol of signal ŝ, will now be described. 
     There are P b  possibilities for the content of a vector {right arrow over (v)} n  of b consecutive hypothesised symbols of s commencing with {tilde over (s)} n , where P is the number of symbols in the constellation of the modulation scheme that is being used. In the present example, 8PSK is being used, so there are 8 b  possibilities for vector {right arrow over (v)} n . These possibilities for {right arrow over (v)} n , which are often called hypotheses, can be illustrated by means of a tree structure, as illustrated in  FIG. 4 . 
     In  FIG. 4 , the horizontal dimension represents time, which is measured in symbol periods.  FIG. 4  is a partial illustration of the case where b=4. There are 8 possibilities for symbol {tilde over (s)} n , and these are represented by a column of nodes  30  to  44  at time n. From each of the nodes  30  to  44 , there are eight possibilities for {tilde over (s)} n+1  at time n+1. However, to keep  FIG. 4  intelligible, only the nodes for the eight possibilities for {tilde over (s)} n+1  that lead out of node  30  and the nodes for the eight possibilities for {tilde over (s)} n+1  that lead out of node  32  have been shown at time n+1. For similar reasons, only the nodes for the eight possibilities for {tilde over (s)} n+2  at time n+2 that lead out of node  45  at time n+1 and the nodes for the eight possibilities for {tilde over (s)} n+3  at time n+3 that lead out of node  46  at time n+2 are shown. At each time point in  FIG. 4 , the nodes fall into one or more octets, the nodes in each octet sharing a common origin in the preceding time point. In each of these octets, the nodes relate, from top to bottom, to modulation symbols σ 0  to σ 7  respectively. For example, node  38  relates to the possibility that {tilde over (s)} n  is σ 4  and nodes  45  and  48  both relate to the possibility that {tilde over (s)} n+1  is σ 7 , albeit that they stem from different possibilities for {tilde over (s)} n . 
     As stated earlier, the tree shown in  FIG. 4  illustrates the various hypotheses for vector {right arrow over (v)} n . For example, the path connecting the series of nodes  30 ,  45 ,  46  and  50  represents the hypothesis [σ 0 , σ 7 , σ 7 , σ 3 ]. The metric calculation unit can calculate a total error metric (TEM) for each hypothesis of {right arrow over (v)} n . The process of calculating an exemplary one of these TEMs will now be described. 
     Assume the case where b=4 and that the 8PSK constellation symbols hypothesised for s n , s n+1 , s n+2  and s n+3  are {tilde over (s)} n , {tilde over (s)} n+1 , {tilde over (s)} n+2  and {tilde over (s)} n+3  respectively, such that the hypothesis of {right arrow over (v)} n  under examination is [{tilde over (s)} n , {tilde over (s)} n+1 , {tilde over (s)} n+2 , {tilde over (s)} n+3 ,]. For each element {tilde over (s)} n+a  (where a=0 to b−1) of the hypothesis, i.e. for each node of the hypothesis, a discrepancy metric c({tilde over (s)} n+a ) is calculated as: 
     
       
         
           
             
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     Notice however that in the case where a&gt;L−1, the discrepancy metric c({tilde over (s)} n+a ) doesn&#39;t depend on {tilde over (s)} n  (e.g. where a=L, the “earliest” hypothesis taken into account in the sum is {tilde over (s)} n+1  for i=L−1). As a matter of fact, each transmitted symbol has an influence on the received signal limited to a time range equal to the duration of the channel impulse response. In other words s n  has no influence on received samples r n+L  and beyond, therefore quite naturally, the discrepancy metrics c({tilde over (s)} n+L ) and beyond do not depend on the hypothesis {tilde over (s)} n  made for s n . 
     Thus, c({tilde over (s)} n+a ) is, in general terms, the squared Euclidean distance between a sample r n+a  and the result of loading into an FIR filter having the g i  tap coefficients a model signal comprising hypothesised symbol {tilde over (s)} n+a  preceded by any other hypothesised symbols back to {tilde over (s)} n , preceded by as many of the estimated symbols from ŝ n−1  backwards as are necessary to give the model signal a length of L symbols. For example, for a=2 and L=4, the model signal would take the form [{tilde over (s)} n+2 , {tilde over (s)} n+1 , {tilde over (s)} n , ŝ n−1 ]. 
     The TEM y for the hypothesis {right arrow over (v)} n  (with b elements {tilde over (s)} n , {tilde over (s)} n+1 , . . . , {tilde over (s)} n+b−1 ) is then given by: 
     
       
         
           
             
               
                 
                   
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     In general terms, however, it would usually be prohibitively computationally intensive to calculate a TEM for each and every hypothesis of {right arrow over (v)} n . Therefore, the metric calculation unit  22  prunes the number of branches in the tree diagram representing the hypotheses for {right arrow over (v)} n . An example of a pruning strategy will now be described with reference to  FIGS. 2 and 4 . 
     In  FIG. 4 , each hypothesis is a separate path through the entire tree, beginning at time n and ending at time n+3 (it will be recalled that the diagram relates to the case where b=4). In general terms, the exemplary pruning strategy operates by keeping just three of the nodes in each octet. Within any given octet, the retained nodes are the node which relates to the symbol with the lowest discrepancy metric and the nodes that relate to the modulation symbols that circumferentially neighbour the modulation symbol of the node having the lowest discrepancy metric. That is to say, if in a particular octet the node with the lowest discrepancy metric relates to the hypothesis that {tilde over (s)} n+a  is σ j , (where j is one of 0 to 7 because the 8PSK constellation of  FIG. 2  is assumed), then the two other retained nodes of the octet are those for {tilde over (s)} n+a =σ j+1  and {tilde over (s)} n+a =σ j−1  (where j increments and decrements cyclically). 
     Only hypotheses of {right arrow over (v)} n  passing through retained nodes then have their TEM evaluated, and the pruning process commences with the octet for time n. For example, assume that the lowest discrepancy metric in the a=0 octet (i.e. the octet for time n) belongs to node  30  for σ 0 . Then, only hypotheses that pass through that node and nodes  32  and  44  for neighbouring modulation symbols σ 1  and σ 7  are retained. Each of these three retained nodes then gives rise to a respective octet for a=1. In each of the three octets for a=1, only three nodes are retained using the above rule. And so the pruning process continues, until the nodes for a=3 have been pruned. The TEMs for the surviving hypotheses of {right arrow over (v)} n  can be built up from the discrepancy metrics as the pruning process steps through the tree from a=0 to 3. 
     The metric calculation unit  22  provides the TEMs and their associated hypotheses of {right arrow over (v)} n  to the selector unit  28 . The selector unit  28  identifies the hypothesis with the smallest TEM and issues {tilde over (s)} n  of that hypothesis as ŝ n . Thus, a decision is made using information from times n, n+1, . . . n+b, but the decision is only a decision on the symbol at time n. The value ŝ n  is also fed back to the metric calculation unit  22  to participate in the calculation of the next iteration of the discrepancy metrics, i.e. for the determination of ŝ n+1 . 
     It will be apparent to the skilled person that various modifications to the described embodiments can be envisaged without departing from the scope of the invention. 
     For example, where sufficient data processing resources are available to the UE, the UE could indeed calculate TEMs for all possible hypotheses and not resort to pruning. In other variants, pruning could be used, but in an alternative form to that described above, e.g. different pruning strategies can be used at different levels in the tree. 
     Within the UE  6 , the various units involved in the invention, i.e. the buffer  20 , the metric calculator  22  and the selector  28  are all implemented as parts of an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), as indeed are other elements of the UE. In other embodiments, however, some of these units can be replaced by functions performed by a processor with assistance of suitable memory. 
     Other modifications will be apparent to readers skilled in the field of digital communications, and it is to be understood that the scope invention is to be determined by the wording of the appended claims when interpreted in the light of the foregoing description.

Technology Classification (CPC): 7