Patent ID: 7096411

Claim:
A method for resynchronization of a sequential decoder that decodes received signal samples stored within an input buffer, comprising when the input buffer reaches a threshold saturation level, the steps of: a) stopping a sequential decoding process; b) running a forward pass of a MAP decoding process on a first sequence of the signal samples to compute first a posteriori probabilities of information bits associated with the first sequence of the signal samples and to estimate a first resynchronization state; c) using the first a posteriori probabilities to determine a first reliability value of the first resynchronization state; and d) if the first reliability value is greater than a first reliability threshold value, restarting the sequential decoding process at the first resynchronization state otherwise: i) running a forward pass of a MAP decoding process on a second sequence of the signal samples to compute second a posteriori probabilities of information bits associated to the second sequence of signal samples and to estimate a second resynchronization state, ii) using the second a posteriori probabilities to determine a second reliability value of the second resynchronization state, iii) if the second reliability value is greater than a second reliability threshold value, restarting the sequential decoding process at the second resynchronization state, otherwise repeating step d (i) through d (iii).