Patent ID: 7889799

Claim:
A method of channel estimation for an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) signal, the method comprising: receiving an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) signal having an increased pilot density within one or both edge regions of the frequency band spanned by the OFDM signal, relative to a middle region of the frequency band; and using the increased pilot density to improve channel estimation for the OFDM signal within the one or both edge regions of the frequency band; wherein receiving an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) signal having an increased pilot sub carrier density within one or both edge regions of the frequency band spanned by the OFDM signal comprises receiving first pilot symbols via first pilot sub carriers uniformly distributed across the frequency band, and receiving second pilot symbols via second pilot sub carriers distributed in the one or both edge regions; and wherein using the increased pilot density to improve channel estimation for the OFDM signal within the one or both edge regions of the frequency band comprises generating first channel estimates using a Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation process based on the first pilot symbols, and generating second channel estimates for the one or both edge regions using a Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) estimation process based on the second pilot symbols and biased from the ML estimation process.