Patent ID: 7239679

Claim:
A method for estimating the impulse response of a channel comprising: estimating an intermediate impulse response of the channel, wherein the intermediate impulse response comprises a plurality of multipath spikes and one or more non-deterministric noise components at locations throughout the channel; and, applying a threshold function to the estimated intermediate impulse response across at least a portion of the channel in order to provide an estimated final impulse response of the channel, wherein the threshold function is based on a combination of intermediate threshold functions, wherein each of the intermediate threshold functions corresponds to a respective one of the multipath spikes, wherein the threshold function has the effect of nulling the noise components of the channel having values less than the threshold function at the location within the channel of the respective noise component, and wherein the threshold function is characterized by a level that varies across the portion of the channel in a manner determined by the location of the plurality of multipath spikes within the channel.