Patent ID: 8365050

Claim:
A method for decoding digital data received by a correspondent device over a communication channel, the data including a component corresponding to a plurality of values unknown to the correspondent device and a component corresponding to at least one value known a priori by the correspondent device, at least one of the at least one value known a priori by the correspondent device being stored in memory of the correspondent device, the method comprising: (a) the correspondent device retrieving from memory the at least one of the one or more known values; (b) the correspondent device applying a statistical measure using the at least one of the at least one known value to generate a first estimated location of the component corresponding to the at least one known value, and at least one additional estimated location of the component corresponding to the at least one known value; (c) a decoder of the correspondent device using the at least one known value and the first estimated location of the component corresponding to the at least one known value in decoding the data by using the first estimated location of the component corresponding to the at least one known value as the actual location of the component corresponding to the at least one known value; (d) the correspondent device checking for an error in the decoded data; and (e) if the correspondent device detects an error in the data decoded in operation (d), then repeating operations (c) and (d) using each of the at least one additional estimated location of the component corresponding to the at least one known value, the repeating being performed until no decoding errors are found in a particular iteration, or until reaching a predetermined tolerable delay.