Patent ID: 7809020

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a respective signal in each of a plurality of receive chains of a receiver of a wireless network, the receiver configured to receive signals corresponding to a wireless transmission of a packet from a transmitting station of the wireless network, the packet having a preamble and a data part; calculating a plurality of start of packet (SOP) indicators, each for one or more of the receive chains; determining one or more linear combinations of respective pluralities of the calculated SOP indicators to form one or more combined SOP indicators; comparing each of a plurality of SOP indicators or combined SOP indicators, including at least one of the combined SOP indicators to a respective threshold to form one or more respective SOP events; and in the case there is more than one SOP event, determining a logic function of the SOP events to form a SOP decision event, wherein the plurality of SOP indicators include for each of at least two of the receive chains at least one SOP indicator based on a measure of the received signal strength or based on a measure of the average received signal strength or based on a measure of a change in received signal strength or based on a measure of a change in an average of the received signal strength, or wherein the plurality of SOP indicators include two or more of: one or more SOP indicators each based on a measure of a change in received signal strength or of a change in an average of the received signal strength; one or more SOP indicators based on a measure of the received signal strength or of the average received signal strength; one or more SOP indicators based on one or more measures of the quality of the correlation of the input signal with a known part of the preamble; and one or more SOP indicators based on one or more normalized measures of the autocorrelation of the received waveform.