Patent ID: 8094736

Claim:
An apparatus for estimating noise power in frequency domain to receive a received signal from a channel comprising M sub-channels, the apparatus comprising: a state decision device, for judging a state whether the M sub-channels is in a state where no packet is being transmitted, wherein when a K th sub-channel is in a state where no packet is transmitted, a noise estimation apparatus is enabled; and the noise estimation apparatus comprises: a frequency domain signal accessing unit, for accessing a signal in a frequency domain to estimate a power of signal over the K th sub-channel, denoted by P k ; an average unit, for receiving the P k and perform an average operation on the Pk and a former average noise power over the K th sub-channel to output an average noise power over the K th sub-channel, denoted by N k ; and a noise power register apparatus, comprising M registers to receive the N k and input the N k in a K th register, a first multiplex unit, for outputting a N k value stored in the K th register of the noise power register apparatus based on a K value; a noise power discrimination apparatus, for dividing the channel into a plurality of time intervals in time domain and providing correspondence between time intervals and a plurality of noise configurations; a plurality of average noise power storage blocks, corresponding to the noise configurations, wherein each of the average noise power storage blocks comprises M storage units; and a value processing unit, coupled to the first multiplex unit, for performing an operation on the N k to output an logarithm value of average noise power which is denoted and judging a specific noise configuration corresponding to the channel in a predetermined time interval and store the L k computed by the value processing unit in the K th storage unit of a predetermined average noise power storage block according to a predetermined time interval corresponding to the received signal via the noise power discrimination apparatus, wherein the average noise power storage block corresponds to the specific noise configuration.