Patent ID: 7930138

Claim:
A handheld communications device, comprising: an antenna configured to receive a wireless signal; and a data processor coupled to the antenna, the data processor comprising a digital signal processor, the digital signal processor being configured to: (i) generate a set of measurements of the wireless signal; (ii) allocate the set of measurements amongst partitions of a hierarchical multi-level partition space, each level of the partition space having a plurality of the partitions, each partition having a respective numerical range, a value of each said allocated measurement being within one of the numerical ranges, one of the measurements allocated to one of the partitions having a desired rank, the one partition encompassing the numerical range of all the partitions in the partition level immediately lower thereto, each partition in the immediately lower partition level having a desired resolution for the measurements allocated thereto; and (iii) estimate a characteristic of the wireless signal by summing a number of the measurements allocated to each respective partition in the immediately lower partition level until the desired rank is obtained, the numerical range of the partition in the immediately lower partition level and associated with the desired rank comprising the estimate of the characteristic.