Patent ID: 8743942

Claim:
A method of demodulating a received signal corresponding to a transmitted signal carried over a channel, comprising: grouping points of a constellation associated with the transmitted signal into a plurality of subsets, adjacent ones of the subsets having one or more common constellation points so that at least two adjacent subsets overlap; determining a centroid-based value for each of the subsets of constellation points; grouping the centroid-based values into one or more sets for input to a demodulator having a plurality of stages wherein a first one of the stages localizes a search for a final symbol decision; and demodulating the received signal using the demodulator, each of the stages except for a last one of the stages localizing the search for the final symbol decision using the set of centroid-based values input to or selected by the stage as constellation points to generate a localized symbol decision and the last stage generates a last one of localized symbol decisions for determining the final symbol decision using one of the subsets of constellation points input to or selected by the last stage; and summing each of the localized symbol decisions generated by each of the plurality of stages to generate the final symbol decision.