| 摘要 |
<p>This invention generally relates to apparatus, methods and computer program code for decoding a received signal where the signal is received by a received antenna from a plurality of transmit antennas. The invention addresses the further difficulties which arise when only limited or known information for deriving an estimate of the responses of the channels between the transmit antennas and the receive antenna is available. There is described a method of decoding a signal transmitted from a plurality of transmit antennas and received by at least one receive antenna, the transmitted signal comprising a codeword vector c having elements c 1 to c NT where NT is the number of transmit antennas, elements c 1 to c NT denoting respective symbols transmitted from each transmit antenna, the codeword c being generated by a coding machine operating on input data symbols and having a finite plurality of states, said coding machine having a set of allowed transitions between said states, transitions of said machine being determined by a sequence of said input data symbols, a set of channel responses describing the response of each channel between a said transmit antenna and said at least one receive antenna, the signal received at said at least one receive antenna comprising a combination of the signals transmitted from each transmit antenna, each transmitted signal being modified by a respective one of said set of channel responses, the method comprising determining an initial estimate for said set of channel responses and selecting an assumed initial state of said coding machine; extrapolating from said initial estimate and state using said received signal to determine a set of estimated transmitted codewords and associated sets of channel responses, each estimated codeword having an associated estimated set of channel responses; and determining an estimated input data symbol sequence from said set of estimated transmitted codewords to decode said received signal; and wherein said extrapolating comprises a plurality of iterations, each iteration comprising establishing a set of allowed transitions from each possible state of said coding machine at a said iteration to each allowed new state of said coding machine for a next iteration; selecting, for each allowed new state of said coding machine with a plurality of allowed transitions to the new state, one of said plurality of transitions by estimating a set of channel responses for each said allowed transition and comparing, for each said allowed transition, said received signal to a codeword associated with the transition modified by said estimated set of channel responses associated with the transition; and then updating the estimated set of channel responses associated with the selected transition using said received signal.</p> |
