Patent ID: 8379742

Claim:
A method of estimating channel conditions for use in optimizing transmission capacity between a transmitter and receiver in a multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, data being transmitted from the transmitter to the receiver over a bandwidth partitioned into multiple frequency channels, the data being divided into multiple data streams each of which is transmitted on a different frequency channel, each data stream being divided into multiple layers transmitted simultaneously within each frequency channel, the transmitter using pre-coding matrices for multiplexing the multiple layers within each frequency channel, the method including the steps of, at the receiver: in a signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) calculation block, computing a SINR metric for all pre-coding matrices; in a rank estimation block, computing a first capacity metric for the bandwidth from the SINR metrics, and selecting a rank which maximizes the first capacity metric; in a pre-coding matrix estimation block, computing a second capacity metric for each frequency channel from the SINR metrics and the selected rank, and selecting one or more pre-coding matrices which maximize the second capacity metric; in a channel quality indicator estimation block, computing a third capacity metric from the second capacity metric, selected rank and selected one or more pre-coding matrices for each transmission layer within each frequency channel, and selecting one or more frequency channels which maximize the third capacity metric; and transmitting the selected rank, selected one or more pre-coding matrices and selected one or more frequency channels to the transmitter for use in subsequent data transmissions.