Patent ID: 8041336

Claim:
A method for determining the time of arrival of a signal at a mobile communication device, comprising: (a) correlating a received signal in a receiver in accordance with a correlation function to produce a stream of correlation samples including a peak sample, a plurality of pre-peak samples, and a plurality of post-peak samples, wherein the time of arrival of the signal corresponds to a timing of a peak of the correlation function, which lies in a vicinity of the peak sample; (b) storing a curve matching table comprising a plurality of sets of values, each of the sets of values representing discrete points of a correlation function having a peak at a respective different time shift relative to the timing of the peak sample, wherein the plurality of sets of values includes first sets of values to be matched with a first set of samples from the stream of correlation samples and second sets of values to be matched with a second set of samples from the stream of correlation samples; (c) matching each of the first sets of values to the first set of samples, the first set of samples including no post-peak samples; (d) matching each of the second sets of values to the second set of samples, the second set of samples including at least one post-peak sample, wherein one set of values among the first and second sets of values produces a best match; and (e) determining the time of arrival of the signal based on timing of the peak of the correlation function represented by the one set of values that produced the best match.