Patent ID: 8737550

Claim:
A method, in a communications receiver, for obtaining smoothed channel response estimates, the method comprising: performing multiple channel response measurements corresponding to a path delay or to a signal frequency, to obtain ordered channel measurement samples for a current estimation interval; estimating a short-term slope value for each of a plurality of sequential observation time intervals, each observation time interval comprising a plurality of the ordered channel measurement samples and having a uniform length; for each of a plurality of candidate filter lengths, where each candidate filter length is an integer multiple of the uniform length, computing a distortion metric value based on the short-term slope values for observation time intervals falling within the candidate filter length, the distortion metric value characterizing an extent to which the candidate filter length will introduce a tracking bias in filtering the ordered channel measurement samples; and selecting a filter length for use in demodulating a received signal from at least among the candidate filter lengths, based on the distortion metric values, such that the longest filter length meeting a pre-determined distortion criterion is selected.