Patent ID: 8437431

Claim:
A method for decoding a single received transmit phase point selected from a constellation of phase points and transmitted during a unit interval, said method comprising: forming a plurality of hypotheses about which single phase point was transmitted during said unit interval; calculating a plurality of residuals responsive to the Euclidean distances between each of said plurality of hypothesized transmitted phase points and said single received transmit phase point; and applying a decoder process that retains or eliminates decoder code tree paths based on said calculated plurality of residuals, wherein residual average thresholds corresponding to an average of n said residuals are defined for said decoder process, for each said decoder code tree path, the path average of the last n said residuals for that path are calculated, the minimum average residual among all said path averages is identified, and said decoder code tree paths are eliminated if their path averages are greater than the sum of said minimum average residual and said residual average thresholds.