Patent ID: 7548594

Claim:
An adaptive channel estimation method utilized in a multicarrier communication system, the multicarrier communication system transmitting a symbol through a plurality of subchannels, the plurality of subchannels comprising a plurality of pilot signal subchannels and a plurality of data signal subchannels, the pilot signal subchannels transmitting a plurality of pilot signals of the symbol, the data signal subchannels transmitting a plurality of data signals of the symbol, each of the pilot signal subchannels being a continual pilot signal subchannel or a scattered pilot signal subchannel, each of the data signal subchannels being the scattered pilot signal subchannel or a simple data signal subchannel, the continual pilot signal subchannel only used for transmitting pilot signals, the scattered pilot signal subchannel used for transmitting at least one of pilot signals and data signals, and the simple data signal subchannel only used for transmitting data signals, the method comprising: categorizing each of the subchannels according to a relative position of each of the subchannels with respect to at least one of the pilot signal subchannels, the categorizing step comprising a step of categorizing the subchannels according to a result of ((n+k) mod 4) and a result of (k mod 3), wherein n is the number of the symbol, k is the number of one of the subchannels, and mod represents modulus function; determining channel response(s) of one or more of the pilot signal subchannels; determining a first set of interpolation coefficients according to the categorizing step and the channel response(s) of the one or more of the pilot signal subchannels; estimating channel response(s) of at least one of the scattered pilot signal subchannels according to the first set of interpolation coefficients and the channel response(s) of the one or more of the pilot signal subchannels; and according to the already determined channel responses of the subchannels, determining a second set of interpolation coefficients and estimating channel response(s) of at least one of the simple data signal subchannels.