Patent ID: 7440524

Claim:
A receiver for a wireless communication system comprising: a front end receiving an information signal transmitted over a wireless channel, the front end providing a signal output that includes any intersymbol interference introduced by transmission over the wireless channel; an analog to digital converter converting the signal output into a sequence of sample values; and a channel estimator that estimates a channel impulse response from the sequence of sample values, the channel estimator comprising: a first correlation unit generating correlation values by correlating N midamble bits with a plurality of the sample values, a positioning unit that selects from the correlation values of the first correlation unit L correlation values based on estimation quality of a first channel impulse response (CIR) estimate, the positioning unit aligning a set of received signal samples according to the first CIR estimate, and a second correlation unit correlating the set of received signal samples with M midamble bits, M greater than N, wherein the N and M midamble bits are derived from a plurality of known pilot bits and wherein the M midamble bits have a non-orthogonality property in a second correlation process performed by the second correlation unit so that the second correlation process introduces correlation effects, and the second correlation unit removing at least a portion of the correlation effects to produce a second CIR estimate.