Patent ID: 8385438

Claim:
An apparatus in a multiple sub-carrier digital communication receiver, the apparatus including: a first transform block configured to transform, using a first window position, a sequence of time domain samples into a sequence of frequency domain symbols, each frequency domain symbol including a plurality of complex values at a first plurality of sub-carrier frequencies; a channel impulse response estimation block configured to calculate a time domain channel impulse response estimate based on the sequence of frequency domain symbols, wherein the channel impulse response estimation block is further configured to generate a first set of channel estimates at a second plurality of sub-carrier frequencies using a pre-determined set of transmit pilot symbols in the sequence of frequency domain symbols, and a second set of channel estimates at a third plurality of sub-carrier frequencies using the sequence of frequency domain symbols, wherein the second and third pluralities of sub-carrier frequencies are subsets of the first plurality of sub-carrier frequencies; and a symbol synchronization block configured to determine a second window position with which the first transform block is reconfigured to transform the sequence of time domain samples, wherein the symbol synchronization block determines the second window position in response to the time domain channel impulse response estimate, the first set of channel estimates and the second set of channel estimates.