Patent ID: 8045600

Claim:
A method of compensating for processing timing misalignment in a communication receiver comprising: estimating a set of path delays for a received signal according to a first timing resolution, said set of estimated path delays corresponding to actual path delays of the received signal; setting a processing delay on each estimated path delay according to a second timing resolution, such that each processing delay is aligned with a respective one of the estimated path delays; estimating a timing misalignment between each one of two or more of the processing delays and the corresponding actual path delays by: forming a number of joint hypotheses, each joint hypothesis being a particular combination of one fractional timing offset value for each of the two or more processing delays, each such fractional timing offset value representing a hypothesized misalignment between the processing delay and the corresponding actual path delay; computing a decision metric for each joint hypothesis that indicates the accuracy of the joint hypothesis; and evaluating the decision metrics to identify a best estimate of timing misalignment for the two or more estimated path delays; and compensating coherent processing of the received signal according to the best estimate of timing misalignment.