Patent ID: 8804876

Claim:
A method for demodulating a block at a receiver, the block including a plurality of bursts, the method comprising: detecting a modulation scheme for a current burst in the plurality of bursts, wherein a burst comprises a data symbol portion and a training sequence portion; determining whether there is a high probability that the detected modulation scheme is correct, wherein the determining whether there is a high probability that the detected modulation scheme is correct comprises: demodulating the current burst based on the detected modulation scheme; estimating a burst signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), wherein estimating the burst SNR comprises: estimating data symbols of the current burst based on the demodulated current burst; computing first reconstructed samples by convolving the data symbol estimates with channel estimates; computing second reconstructed samples by convolving the training sequence portion with the channel estimates; estimating a noise power by subtracting the first reconstructed samples from the data symbol portion of the current burst and subtracting the second reconstructed samples from the training sequence portion of the demodulated current burst; and estimating the burst SNR based on the noise power estimate; and determining a high probability that the detected modulation scheme is correct if the burst SNR estimate is above a threshold; and demodulating each burst subsequent to the current burst in the plurality of bursts based on the detected modulation scheme when there is a high probability that the detected modulation scheme is correct.