Patent ID: 8744026

Claim:
A method of detecting a desired signal within a composite signal that includes an interfering signal, said method performed in a wireless communication apparatus and comprising: receiving the composite signal and obtaining sample values therefrom, where at least some of the sample values include a desired signal component and an interfering signal component; generating an interfering signal channel estimate by: forming sample pairs for some or all of the sample values; identifying sample pairs of interest as those sample pairs in which the interfering signal component is the same, wherein identifying the sample pairs of interest comprises, for each sample pair considered, calculating a normalized difference between the sample values comprising the sample pair, and deeming the sample pair to be of interest when the normalized difference lies within a threshold distance of a defined modulation constellation point; and calculating the interfering signal channel estimate as an average value determined from one or more of the sample pairs of interest; and detecting desired signal symbols from the composite signal in a joint detection process that functionally depends on the interfering signal channel estimate.