Patent ID: 7483475

Claim:
An apparatus for solving a linear equation of the form r=A d+n for d using either a minimum mean square error block linear equalizer (MMSE-BLE) or zero forcing block linear equalizer (ZF-BLE) based solution, where A is a block Toeplitz matrix and n represents a noise vector, r and d are vectors, the apparatus comprising: a covariance matrix processing component configured to produce a covariance matrix R of the form A H A+σ 2 I for a MMSE-BLE based solution, where A H is a Hermetian of A, σ 2 is a noise variance and I is an identity matrix or A H A for a ZF-BLE based solution; a first matrix extension component configured to extend the A matrix and R matrix; a matrix block processing component configured to approximate the extended A and R matrices as block circulant matrices; a diagonal matrix processing component configured to determine a diagonal matrix of each of the extended and approximated A and R matrices, using the block columns of the extended and approximated A and R matrices; a second matrix extension component configured to extend r; a block Fourier transform component configured to take a Fourier transform of r; a multiplier component configured to take products of the diagonal matrices and the extended r; a summer configured to sum the products; and a block inverse Fourier transform component configured to estimate d using an inverse Fourier transform and the summed products.