Patent ID: 7194025

Claim:
For use with a system for processing a communication signal, that has been transported over a dispersive communication channel, so as to recover an unknown information signal contained in said communication signal, wherein said communication signal is coupled to an adaptive equalizer to produce an output signal representative of said information signal, a method of updating weighting coefficients for said adaptive equalizer, said method comprising the steps of: (a) processing an input signal to or said output signal produced by said adaptive equalizer to extract a distorted signal pattern signal representative of one or more known signal patterns repetitively distributed among information signals contained within said communication signal; (b) processing an undistorted copy of said known signal patterns with said distorted signal pattern signal extracted in step (a) to derive an error or differential signal; and (c) updating said weighting coefficients for said equalizer in accordance with said error or differential signal derived in step (b) wherein step (a) comprises: (a1) recovering a clock signal embedded within the output signal produced by said adaptive equalizer, (a2) correlating contents of said output signal with a copy of said known signal patterns in accordance with the clock signal recovered in step (a1) to identify where, within said output signal, said known signal patterns are located, (a3) sampling said output signal produced by said equalizer in accordance with locations of said known signal patterns identified in step (a2) and thereby extract said signal pattern signal.