Patent ID: 7376178

Claim:
A user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system performing low bias estimation of signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio of a sequence of received BPSK communication symbols r k (k=1 to N) from a system base station, the UE comprising: a signal-to-noise estimator configured to select an initial estimate of signal-to-noise ratio SNR 0 ; calculate an initial amplitude value A 0 and noise variance value σ 0 based on the estimate SNR 0 ; calculate a subsequent amplitude value A 1 based on probability density; calculate a subsequent noise variance value σ 1 based on amplitude value A 1 ; calculate a subsequent signal-to-noise ratio SNR 1 based on A 1 and σ 1 ; subtract SNR 0 from SNR 1 to obtain a calculated resolution value; adjust value SNR 0 ; perform estimation iterations based on the adjusted value SNR 0 until the calculated resolution value is equal to a predetermined acceptable value.