Patent ID: 7697412

Claim:
A method for optimizing the processing of a received Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed signal, the signal comprising a plurality of symbols in a time direction, each symbol comprising a plurality of sub-carriers in a frequency direction, the method comprising the steps of: (a) providing a plurality of techniques for channel estimation and equalization of the received signal; (b) receiving at least one of the symbols of the signal; (c) selecting one of the techniques to be used on the received symbols or on additional at least one of the symbols of the signal; (d) performing the channel estimation and the equalization on the received symbols of the signal; and (e) repeating the providing step (a), the receiving step (b), the selecting step (c) and the performing step (d), wherein the selecting step (c) further comprises the steps of performing the channel estimation and the equalization on the received symbols of the signal for each of the techniques using all of the sub-carriers in the received symbols, and comparing results of all of the techniques, and from the results of all of the techniques, a distortion parameter is derived for each of the sub-carriers in the received symbols for each of the techniques, the distortion parameter defining a measure of a difference between an actual equalized sub-carrier and an ideal sub-carrier for a particular modulation scheme, the distortion parameter comprising a distance in a complex plane between an ideal position of the sub-carrier in the complex plane and an actual position of the equalized sub-carrier in the complex plane.