Spidercloud Wireless, Inc.

Oliver Charlesworth

Peter J Worters

Colin Campbell

Methods and apparatus for efficiently implementing a rake receiver which allows for rake receiver elements, e.g., fingers, to be dynamically assigned to antenna elements are described. In at least some embodiments multiple antennas are used. Rake elements are allocated to antennas in a dynamic manner with sets of weights also being assigned dynamically, e.g., based on channel estimates. Rake finger assignment to antenna's is made, in some embodiments, to maximize signal recovery taking into consideration the channel conditions detected by each antenna for the various delays that may be supported. Through the dynamic assignment of rake finger's to antenna's, a single rake finger may be coupled to different antennas at different times allowing for more efficient use as compared to systems where rake fingers are dedicated on a fixed basis to an individual antenna.

Rake receiver methods and apparatus

Despreading apparatus with a relatively simple control is described. Plurality of despreading modules are provided in parallel, e.g., one per user. Each despreading module supports a plurality of despreading rates, e.g., ranging from the minimum to the maximum despreading rate that may be assigned to a user. Each despreading module is controlled in a simple manner with the output of the despreading module and despreading rate achieved being determined by a control module controlling a controllable downsampling module such that despreading rate corresponding to the individual user to which the despreading module corresponds is achieved at any given time. MUX control signals are provided to a plurality of MUXes included in the despreading module, and may be stored in a table with each set of MUX control signals corresponding to a different despreading rate. Control is greatly simplified, compared to systems where a set of despreading circuitry is dynamically configured.

Despreading methods and apparatus

Methods and apparatus for dynamically allocating processing resources between low rate, e.g., standard rate, and high rate data channel processing chains are described. This allows for different numbers of high data rate and standard data rate uplink users to be supported at different times using the same set of hardware.

Methods and apparatus for processing uplink signals

Apparatus for recovering symbols from control and data channels corresponding to a plurality of users is described. Samples corresponding to control channel signals from multiple users are processed on a time shared basis with various control channel processing elements being reused multiple times to processes the samples and recover signals, e.g., symbols, corresponding to the plurality of users. While the control channel processing elements are used on a time shared basis, a separate data channel processing chain or module maybe provided for each of the plurality of users. In some embodiments the order of despreading and filtering is reversed for the control and data channel signal processing.

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Cambridge, United Kingdom

Oliver Charlesworth