Patent ID: 7054394

Claim:
A method for Doppler spread estimation for a radio signal transmission channel in a mobile communications environment on the basis of a radio signal (c) transmitted via the transmission channel, the method comprising the steps of: determining an autocorrelation function (φ cc (t)) for the radio signal (c); defining a Doppler spread (B (2) ) for the radio signal (c) as a function in time of the autocorrelation function (φ cc (t)) and its first and second derivatives for a point of time being zero; determining the autocorrelation function (φ cc (0)) for the point of time being zero; estimating the first derivative of the autocorrelation function (φ cc (0)) for the point of time being zero, by averaging a first portion of the autocorrelation function (φ cc (t)) including the point of time being zero; estimating the second derivative of the autocorrelation function (φ cc (0)) for the point of time being zero by averaging a second portion of the autocorrelation function (φ cc (t)) including the point of time being zero; and estimating the Doppler spread (B (2) ) for the transmission channel by evaluating the Doppler spread function using the autocorrelation function (φ cc (0)) as determined for the point of time being zero and the first and second derivatives (φ cc (0), (φ cc (0)) of the autocorrelation function as estimated for the point of time being zero.