Icera, Inc.

Nvidia Technology UK Limited

Simon Huckett

Carlo Luschi

Steve Allpress

Edward Andrews

Simon Nicholas Walker

Philip Jones

Stephen Felix

Simon Christian Knowles

Stephen Alan Allpress

Colman Hegarty

Simon Fellows

Jonathan Peter Lucas

Phil Jones

Laolu Lijofi

Godfrey Da Costa

Simon Walker

Wireless receivers are described for receiving signals from a transmitter. A receiver can include a plurality of antennas each for receiving a version of a signal via a different propagation channel and providing that version to a respective input. Signal processing means can be included and configured to operate diversity processing of a supplied number of said inputs for use in performing detection of said signal. The receiver can include channel parameter estimation means, configured to estimate one or more channel parameters on the propagation channels. The receiver can also include selection means configured to select only a subset of said inputs to implement a specific dimensionality of the receiver diversity processing, in dependence on the one or more channel parameters indicative of channel conditions on said propagation channels. The diversity processing can be linear or non-linear. Related methods and software implementations and computer program products are also described.

Wireless receiver with receive diversity

An apparatus, method and program for processing a signal received over a wireless channel. The apparatus comprises: a channel searcher configured to determine a profile of the channel in the form of energy values for a plurality of rays at respective channel positions, and an equalizer for equalizing the signal based on a variable window of the equalizer. The channel searcher is configured to estimate dispersion of the channel by determining a measure of variance of ray distance from a reference position within the channel profile weighted by ray energy. The equalizer is coupled to the channel searcher and arranged to adapt the window in dependence on the measure of energy-weighted ray distance variance.

Equalisation of a signal received over a wireless channel

A processor including: a first and at least a second data processing channel with enable logic for selectively enabling the second channel; logic for generating first and second storage addresses having a variable offset therebetween based on the same one or more address operands of the same storage access instruction; and circuitry for transferring data between the first address and a register of the first data processing channel and between the second address and a corresponding register of the second channel based on a same one or more register specifier operands of the access instruction. The first data processing channel performs an operation using one or more registers of the first data processing channel, and on condition of being enabled the second channel performs the same operation using a corresponding one or more of its own registers based on the same one or more operands of the data processing instruction.

Vector instruction execution to load vector data in registers of plural vector units using offset addressing logic

A method and apparatus for processing a signal in a wireless communication system. The method comprises: receiving a signal at a receiver over a wireless channel; sampling the signal to produce a plurality of signal samples; and supplying the samples to an equaliser implemented in software running on a processor of the receiver, the equaliser being configured to process the samples using at least one equaliser time period having a nominal length. The method further comprises dynamically determining one or more characteristics of the channel; in dependence on the determined channel characteristics, dynamically selecting between a first operational state of the equaliser in which the nominal length is used and a second operational state of the equaliser in which an alternative length is used in place of the nominal length; and processing the samples in the equaliser using the determined equaliser time period length.

Equalisation processing

Systems are described that reduce or obviate the impact of limited processing resources and/or limit the power consumption in a receiver having signal processing functions at least partially implemented in software. A wireless receiver includes reception means for receiving a signal over a wireless channel in a wireless external environment. The receiver includes storage means, and a processor configured to perform a plurality of signal processing functions for extracting processed data from said signal, each of said signal processing functions having a plurality of alternative software implementations requiring different levels of usage of a processing resource. The processor estimates at least one parameter relating to the external environment and selects and executes one of the software alternatives for each of the respective signal processing functions to apply a set of implementations adapted to a required quality of said processed data. Related methods and computer program products are described.

Alternative signal processing functions in a software modem

Techniques are described for optimizing processing facilities of a receiver in a wireless communication environment, taking into consideration processing performance set against the computing resources and/or power consumption required to obtain the processing performance. An embodiment of a radio receiver is described that includes a channel equalization means arranged to receive digital samples of an incoming signal and to generate an equalized output, said channel equalization means including means for processing said digital samples in accordance with an equalizer algorithm utilizing a set of equalizer parameters. The receiver can include means for estimating at least one parameter of a channel over which the signal has been received, and means for selecting at least one of said equalizer parameters based on at least one of said estimated channel parameters. Related methods, algorithms, and computer program products are also described.

Radio receiver in a wireless communications system

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Bristol, United Kingdom

Simon Huckett