Patent ID: 7823041

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving signals in each of multiple channels; processing the signals, wherein the processing includes at least reducing noise in the signals; providing information at least of the signal-to-noise ratio of noise-reduced signals of each of multiple channels; providing metrics of noise-reduced signals for each of the channels based on the signal-to-noise ratio of noise-reduced signals of each of multiple channels independent of signal-to-noise ratio of another channel, wherein metrics describe reliability of inputs used in the act of reducing noise, providing metrics comprises determining a Log-Likelihood Ratio of aposteriori probabilities of coded bits in the noise-reduced signals using signal-to-noise ratio of each channel, and providing metrics comprises providing metrics from a look-up-table using signal-to-noise ratio of the channel; and decoding each of the noise-reduced signals based on a combination of the metrics from the multiple channels.