Patent ID: 7035329

Claim:
A method for estimating a transmitted symbol, the transmitted symbol being mapped to a constellation map, the method comprising: receiving a sample; estimating Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratio (SINR) of the sample; estimating the transmitted symbol based on the SINR and the sample, wherein estimating the transmitted symbol comprises: calculating the variance of the received sample defined by the relationship: σ 2 = 1 2 ⁢ ( SINR ) , and evaluating a conditional mean as: σ ⁡ ( Y ^ ) = ∑ y ∈ Ψ ⁢ y [ ⅇ  Y ^ - y  2 2 ⁢ σ 2 ∑ y ∈ Ψ ⁢ ⅇ  Y ^ - y  2 2 ⁢ σ 2 ] wherein Ŷ represents the input sample to the soft slicer and y represents the transmitted symbols belonging to the constellation mapping Ψ.