The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 29, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 22, 1999
Applicant:
Inventors:
Thomas Peter Emmons, Jr., Mesa, AZ (US);
Robert Anthony Peters, Silver Spring, MD (US);
James W. Startup, Tempe, AZ (US);
Assignee:
Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg, IL (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H04B 1/700 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
H04B 1/700 ;
Abstract
A method and apparatus for soft decision propagation trades off system bandwidth in return for link margin. When signal quality on an uplink is low, a satellite ( ) sends soft decision data, rather than hard decision data, to a gateway ( ). When path diversity exists on the uplinks, and multiple satellites ( ) receive the uplink, multiple versions of soft decision data are sent to the gateway ( ). The gateway combines the soft decision data resulting from multiple uplink paths, thereby increasing the effective uplink signal to noise ratio.