Patent ID: 7099413

Claim:
A method for receiving and decoding signals in a multicarrier transmission system comprising the steps of: receiving, from each of a plurality of antennas, a multicarrier signal corresponding to a transmitted multicarrier signal; applying a Fast Fourier transformation to each of said received multicarrier signals to form respective transformed multicarrier signals; estimating characteristics of a channel over which said transmitted multicarrier signal passed to said antennas using iterative forward processing; and decoding said transformed multicarrier signal, wherein said iterative forward processing includes the steps of: accepting a transformed block of a frame from each of said transformed multicarrier signals, said transformed block having an associated block number that indicates ordinal position of said block in said frame; determining whether said transformed blocks accepted from transformed multicarrier signals, corresponds to a transmitted training block; if said accepted transformed blocks correspond to said transmitted training block, (a) calculating a tentative reference signal from said accepted transformed blocks; (b) generating a tentative estimation of channel characteristics using said tentative reference signal; (c) incrementing said block number; (d) returning to said step accepting if said block number indicates that an end of said frame has not been reached; if said accepted transformed blocks do not correspond to said transmitted training block, (e) decoding said accepted transformed blocks; (f) re-calculating said tentative reference signal based on said accepted transformed blocks and results of said decoded transformed blocks; (g) re-generating said estimation of channel characteristics, using the tentative reference signal re-calculated in step (f); (h) re-decoding said accepted transformed blocks using the estimation of channel characteristics re-generated in step (g); and (i) returning to step (a).