Patent ID: 7177344

Claim:
A spread spectrum communication system of the type that processes one or more spread-spectrum waveforms (“user spread-spectrum waveforms”), each representative of a waveform associated with a respective user, comprising: a first logic element that generates a residual composite spread-spectrum waveform as a function of an arithmetic difference between a composite spread-spectrum waveform and an estimated composite spread-spectrum waveform, one or more second logic elements each coupled to the first logic element, each second logic element generating a refined matched-filter detection statistic for at least a selected user as a function of (i) the residual composite spread-spectrum waveform and (ii) a characteristic of an estimate of the selected user's spread-spectrum waveform wherein each second logic element comprises rake logic and summation logic which generates the refined matched-filter detection statistics based on the relation y k (n+1) [m]=A k (n) 2 ·{circumflex over (b)} k (n) [m]+y res,k (n) [m] wherein A k (n) 2 represents an amplitude statistic, {circumflex over (b)} k (n) [m] represents a soft symbol estimate for the k th user for the m th symbol period, y res,k (n) [m] represents a residual matched-filter detection statistic for the A th user, and n is an iteration count.