Patent ID: 8537915

Claim:
An Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) receiver comprising: receiver circuitry adapted to process a received OFDM signal to provide symbols for a resource of a transmit frame; and a channel estimator implemented in hardware and adapted to: receive the symbols from the receiver circuitry; and extract one or more pilot symbols from the symbols for the resource of the transmit frame according to a predetermined staggered pilot symbol pattern including one or more of a group consisting of: pilot symbol locations located at or near each time boundary of the resource and pilot symbol locations located at or near each frequency boundary of the resource, wherein the pilot symbol locations located at or near each time boundary of the resource comprises one of: pilot symbol locations less than or equal to two OFDM symbols from a first time boundary of the resource and pilot symbol locations less than or equal to two OFDM symbols from a second time boundary of the resource; or pilot symbol locations in an OFDM symbol at a first time boundary of the resource and pilot symbol locations in an OFDM symbol at a second time boundary of the resource; and wherein the pilot symbols located at or near each frequency boundary of the resource comprises one of: pilot symbol locations less than or equal to three sub-carriers from a first frequency boundary of the resource and pilot symbol locations less than or equal to three sub-carriers from a second frequency boundary of the resource; or pilot symbol locations at a sub-carrier at a first frequency boundary of the resource and pilot symbol locations at a sub-carrier at a second frequency boundary of the resource.