Patent ID: 7526406

Claim:
A method of estimating a characteristic of an electrical signal, comprising the steps of: allocating a plurality of measurements amongst numerically sequential primary partitions, each said measurement being associated with a characteristic of an electrical signal, each said primary partition having a respective primary numerical range, a value of each said measurement being numerically within one of the primary numerical ranges; allocating the measurements associated with one of the primary partitions amongst numerically sequential secondary partitions, one of the measurements associated with the one primary partition having a desired rank, the secondary partitions being disposed numerically within the primary numerical range of the one primary partition, each said secondary partition having a respective secondary numerical range, the value of each said measurement associated with each said secondary partition being within a respective one of the secondary numerical ranges; and estimating the characteristic by selecting one of the secondary partitions in accordance with the desired rank, one of the measurements associated with the selected one secondary partition having the desired rank.