Patent ID: 8160189

Claim:
A method of processing a signal to provide a channel characterization, comprising: receiving the signal having an encoded digital packet, wherein the digital packet includes packet data and a packet frame, wherein the packet data include or the packet frame includes a common digital signal that is common to each one of a plurality of digital packets, wherein the common digital signal is part of a native structure of the digital packet; sampling a signal representative of the received signal to provide a sampled signal; performing the channel characterization by correlating a signal representative of the sampled signal with a replica signal representative of the common digital signal: generating a timing signal in response to a correlated signal resulting from the correlating; re-sampling the signal representative of the sampled signal in accordance with the timing signal to provide a re-sampled signal: measuring a signal characteristic associated with the re-sampled signal; quantifying an aspect of the measured signal characteristic; computing a signal error in accordance with the quantified aspect of the measured signal characteristic and in accordance with an expected quantified aspect of the measured signal characteristic: generating filter tap weight values associated with the computed signal error: applying the filter tap weight values to a filter; and filtering with the filter at least one of the signal representative of the sampled signal and the re-sampled signal.