Patent ID: 7725091

Claim:
Method of estimation of the transmit channels in a multi-antenna system implementing n transmit antennas, where n is strictly greater than 2, and at least one reception antenna, according to which n vectors to be transmitted respectively by each of said transmit antennas are associated with a vector of source data, by an encoding matrix M of rate equal to 1, implementing reference symbols known to at least one receiver and enabling this receiver to estimate n transmit channels corresponding respectively to each of said transmit antennas, wherein the method comprises: receiving a received reference vector, corresponding to a transmitted reference vector obtained by mathematically transforming reference symbols by said encoding matrix M, and modified by at least one transmission channel for each of said transmit antennas; and for each of said reception antennas, mathematically transforming said received reference vector by a decoding matrix, which is the inverse of said encoding matrix and takes account of the effect of a transmission channel associated with said reception antenna, to give an estimation of the effects of said transmit channels on said reference symbols.