Patent ID: 8923369

Claim:
A device comprising: an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transmitter comprising: pilot symbol generation circuitry configured to generate one or more pilot symbols; and a pilot inserter configured to: receive data symbols for a resource of a transmit frame, wherein the resource of the transmit frame is a resource unit; receive the one or more pilot symbols from the pilot symbol generation circuitry; and insert the one or more pilot symbols from the pilot symbol generation circuitry into the resource unit of the transmit frame according to a first predetermined staggered pilot symbol pattern including one or more of a group comprising: pilot symbol locations located at or near each time boundary of the resource; and pilot symbol locations located at or near each frequency boundary of the resource, wherein a plurality of predetermined staggered pilot symbol patterns are defined for a plurality of resource unit sizes, each of the plurality of predetermined staggered pilot symbol patterns being for one of the plurality of resource unit sizes; and an OFDM receiver comprising: receiver circuitry configured to process a received OFDM signal to extract data symbols from the received OFDM signal; and a channel estimator configured to: receive said extracted data symbols from the receiver circuitry; and extract one or more pilot symbols from said extracted data symbols according to a second predetermined staggered pilot symbol pattern.