Patent ID: 8412271

Claim:
A base station, comprising: a reference signal generator to provide a dedicated reference signal to be transmitted over a plurality of antennas to a first device of a plurality of devices; a boost selector configured to select a dedicated boost level specific for the dedicated reference signal such that a sum of the dedicated boost level and a channel estimation processing gain yields a predetermined demodulation penalty for the first device of the plurality of devices, apply the dedicated boost level to the dedicated reference signal and not to a data signal to be transmitted to the first device of the plurality of devices, and generate a boosted dedicated reference signal for the first device of the plurality of devices, wherein the boost selector applies the dedicated boost level to the dedicated reference signal to change a power level of the dedicated reference signal relative to the data signal; and a transmitter to transmit the boosted dedicated reference signal and the data signal to the first device of the plurality of devices after beamforming weights are applied to the boosted dedicated reference signal and to the data signal.