Patent ID: 6980600

Claim:
A method of estimating transmitted data symbols from a plurality of signal samples received by a plurality of receivers, said data symbols being part of included in a data stream that is divided into a plurality of substreams, each of said received signal samples including at least one data symbol from each of said plurality of substreams, said method comprising: (a) representing said plurality of signal samples as a function of a plurality of transmitted data symbols and a plurality of channel response values, each of said plurality of channel response values representing a respective signal response for a transmission path of at least one of said plurality of transmitted data symbols, at least a portion of said plurality of channel response values including channel responses caused by multipath scattering; (b) defining a plurality of estimated data symbols as a function of said plurality of signal samples, said function satisfying a performance related criterion; (c) determining a difference expression that represents a difference between a function of said plurality of estimated data symbols and a function of said plurality of signal samples, said difference expression being a sum of a plurality of terms; (d) selecting values for each of a portion of said plurality of estimated data symbols such that one of said plurality of terms is minimized; (e) selecting values for a further portion of said plurality of estimated data symbols such that a further one of said plurality of terms is minimized, said further one of said plurality of terms being a function of said further portion of said plurality of estimated data symbols and said selected values of said plurality of estimated data symbols; and (f) repeating step (e) until each of said plurality of terms is minimized.