Patent ID: 7693036

Claim:
An OFDM receiver comprising: a channel estimator unit (CEU), wherein the CEU can limit refinement of channel estimations based on a number of received data symbols; a frequency domain equalizer (FEQ) for receiving channel estimations from the CEU; and a decision feedback mechanism coupled to the FEQ and the CEU, the decision feedback mechanism allowing refinement of the channel estimations based on analysis of data symbols on data sub-channels, wherein the decision feedback mechanism includes: a Viterbi decoder for decoding a first data symbol; an encoder for reconstructing a transmitted data signal corresponding to the first data symbol; a storage unit for storing a current received data symbol; and a dividing unit for dividing the stored current received data symbol by the reconstructed transmitted data signal, the dividing unit providing a new channel estimation to the CEU, wherein the CEU combines the new channel estimation with one or more previous channel estimations to generate an improved channel estimation using: Ĥ i =(1 −p i,k ) Ĥ i +p i,k Ĥ i,k wherein H.sup.^.sub.i is a channel estimation for the i.sup.th sub-channel, 0≦p i,k ≦1 is a weighting factor for the improved channel estimation and k is a symbol index.