Patent ID: 8687561

Claim:
A method for link adaptation at a base station using metric feedback, comprising: communicating with a mobile station over a communication link having one or more sub-channels using hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ); during the communication, receiving from the mobile station a plurality of mutual information per coded bit metrics for a plurality of candidate modulation types, wherein the plurality of mutual information per coded bit metrics are based on channel state knowledge of the one or more sub-channels; based on the plurality of mutual information per coded bit metrics, computing a new mutual information per coded bit metric corresponding to first and subsequent HARQ transmissions taking into account a new effective code rate and a new code size, wherein the mobile station is to combine the first and subsequent HARQ transmissions; predicting operational performance of the mobile station in view of one or more transmission parameters corresponding to the first and subsequent HARQ transmissions and one or more performance factors; and selecting one or more of the transmission parameters based on the predicting.