Patent ID: 7177348

Claim:
A system for detecting, tracking and combining a multipath fading signal, wherein said multipath fading signal has a plurality of significant multipath components spanned over a plurality of symbol periods, said system comprising: a plurality of cascaded signal register arrays with very first signal register array coupled to receive said multipath fading signal and with each of rest signal register arrays coupled to receive a signal from its previous signal register array for holding a plurality of sections of said multipath fading signal with each section corresponding to a symbol period, wherein each signal register array consists of a plurality of shift registers with a tapped output from each shift register; a reference signal generator for producing a plurality of sections of a local reference signal with each section having number of chips corresponding to a symbol period, holding for a predefined amount of time, and updating at predefined moments; a plurality of matched filters, with each matched filter coupled to receive a section of said plurality of sections of said multipath fading signal from a corresponding signal register and to receive a section of said plurality of sections of said local reference signal from said reference signal generator, for producing a plurality of correlation signals with each correlation signal indicating a correlation value between a section of said plurality of sections of said multipath fading signal captured by a signal register array and a section of said plurality of sections of said local reference signal; a signal combiner, coupled to receive said plurality of correlation signals from said plurality of matched filters, for delaying said plurality of correlation signals by a plurality of different amount of time to produce a plurality of delayed signals and combining said plurality of delayed signals to produce a combined signal; a decision circuit, coupled to receive said combined signal from said signal combiner, for making a decision on a symbol transmitted by a transmitter; and a controller circuit, coupled to receive said plurality of correlation signals from said plurality of matched filters and to receive said combined signal from said signal combiner, for detecting said plurality of significant multipath components, generating and updating a multipath profile, and producing a plurality of timing signals to control said signal combiner and said reference signal generator, wherein said multipath profile determines said plurality of different amount of time, whereby during normal data transmission, said reference signal generator generates said plurality of sections of said local reference signal with each section being different for capturing and updating said plurality of significant multipath components spanned over a plurality of symbol periods.