Patent ID: 7069190

Claim:
A signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) estimator for estimating a SIR of baseband signals which are received and processed by a data demodulator to provide demodulated symbols to the SIR estimator, the SIR estimator comprising: (a) means for receiving the demodulated symbols from the data demodulator; (b) first estimation means for estimating the average signal power of the demodulated symbols as a function of a median based average power value m d and a mean based average power value m e of the demodulated symbols for each quadrant of a quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) constellation; (c) second estimation means for estimating the average effective interference power of the demodulated symbols; and (d) means for calculating the SIR by dividing the estimated average signal power of the demodulated symbols by the estimated average effective interference power of the demodulated symbols.