Patent ID: 8654899

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: an input for receiving from a communication channel a communication signal containing unknown data symbols and known pilot symbols; and a communication signal processing module operatively coupled to the input and configured to determine a transmitted value of a received data symbol based on at least one pilot symbol in the received communication signal, a received value of at least one data symbol, and a likelihood function, the likelihood function taking into account an assumption of a fading process on the communication channel and a specular component of the fading process, wherein the communication signal processing module is configured to determine the transmitted value of the received data symbol by: computing a respective intermediate value for each of a plurality of possible transmitted values of the received data symbol, wherein each intermediate value is representative of an estimate of a gain of the communication channel; determining a respective likelihood value for each possible transmitted value of the received data symbol, the respective likelihood values being a function of the received value of the data symbol and the respective intermediate values; and selecting as a channel gain estimate for the received data symbol a channel gain estimate associated with a highest of the respective likelihood values.