Patent ID: 7599291

Claim:
An improved method for data-rate detection in a signal received from a transmitter of a radio communication system including multiple transport channels supporting variable data-rate transmissions, comprising: receiving the signal including a succession of frames at a receiver of the radio communication system, wherein the signal in each of the succession of frames includes data and Transport Format Channel Information (TFCI) associated with each of the multiple transport channels, the Transport Format Channel Information comprising a Transport Format Combination Set (TFCS) table and Transport Format Combination Indicators (TFCIs), where the TFCIs index the elements of the TFCS, the TFCIs having a length of K bits, where K is the minimum number of bits required to represent every member of the TFCS uniquely, the TFCIs being padded with N-K zeros to get words of length N, and N-bit padded TFCI words being encoded into TFCI code words using a suitable TFCI encoding logic; obtaining at the receiver a maximum number of valid transport format combinations that can be formed for the multiple transport channels from a given set of the TFCS table; obtaining at the receiver the number K as the minimum number of bits required to represent every member of the TFCS distinctly; obtaining at the receiver a maximum number of TFCIs that can be formed using the TFCS as the number of words where the K bits are potentially non-zero and the remaining N-K bits are set to zero; computing at the receiver a subset of valid TFCI code words as the TFCI code words corresponding to the TFCI words; and decoding at the receiver the TFCI over the space of only the computed subset of TFCI code words or with higher weight given to the space of the computed subset of valid TFCI code words as compared to other possible TFCI code words to reduce computation during decoding and to improve data-rate detection reliability.