Patent ID: 7343155

Claim:
An apparatus for maximum ratio combining (MRC) channel estimation, in a Time-Division, Synchronous Code-Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA) communication system utilizing Joint Detection processes, wherein transmitted signals comprise a plurality of time overlapping coded signals transmitted from individual remote units, each coded signal transmitted within the same timeslot and distinguishable only by a specific encoding, and wherein the encoding comprises a midamble, the apparatus comprising: a data splitter, extracting the midambles; a channel estimator, estimating users' channels; a power calculator, calculating the power of every channel window; a power comparator, comparing the calculated powers with a specified threshold and adjusting the user channel estimations accordingly; an angle estimator, estimating the angles used in MRC channel estimation; a multiplier calculator, computing the multipliers used in MRC channel estimation; and an MRC channel estimator, wherein the estimator utilizes the outputs of the channel estimator, the power calculator, the power comparator, the angle estimator, and the multiplier calculator.