Patent ID: 8682272

Claim:
A method of processing a signal transmitted over a channel in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving at a receiver said signal transmitted over said channel; estimating at intervals at least one parameter of a time varying communication environment of said system; monitoring at least one processor-related criterion of a processor at the receiver; selecting a signal processing function from a plurality of signal processing functions implementable by the processor, wherein said selecting of said signal processing function is based on both said at least one parameter and said at least one processor-related criterion; wherein: each signal processing function comprises a plurality of code blocks which process said received signal, each comprising a sequence of instructions for execution on a processor platform of the processor, the processor platform including a set of configurable operators having a plurality of predetermined configurations, each sequence of instructions including at least one configuration instruction which selects one of the plurality of predefined configurations for executing that code block, wherein the processor platform is configured according to the selected one of the plurality of predefined configurations to execute that code block for the selected signal processing function; and the parameter is a channel parameter indicative of channel conditions of said channel, the channel parameter selected from: (a) estimating a channel parameter indicative of the degree of non-stationarity of the channel, and comparing that estimate with at least one mobility threshold; (b) estimating a channel parameter indicative of the energy of the channel outside a predefined temporal window, and comparing that estimate with at least one out-of-window energy threshold; (c) estimating a channel parameter indicative of at least one of the temporal duration of the channel response or channel length and channel delay distribution, and establishing if the estimated temporal duration or channel length or delay distribution meets predetermined criteria; (d) estimating a channel parameter indicating the location of the channel zeros in the z-plane, and establishing if the location of the channel zeros meets predetermined criteria; (e) estimating a channel parameter indicative of a signal-to-disturbance power ratio of the received signal; and comparing the estimated input signal-to-disturbance ratio with at least one signal-to-disturbance ratio threshold; and (f) estimating a channel parameter indicative of the signal-to-disturbance power ratio of the estimated channel response; (g) estimating a channel parameter indicative of the degree of non-stationarity of the disturbance at the receiver input.