Methods and apparatus for parametric estimation in a multiple antenna communication system

摘要

Methods and apparatus are disclosed for processing received data in a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication system. A multiple antenna receiver can distinguish a MIMO transmission from other transmissions based on the detection of a predefined symbol following a legacy portion of a preamble. A preamble comprises a legacy portion and an extended portion. The legacy portion is comprised of a first long preamble followed by a first signal field and may be processed by both multiple antenna receivers and legacy receivers. The extended portion comprises the predefined symbol following the first signal field from the legacy portion. If the predefined symbol is a second long preamble, a MIMO transmission is detected by performing a correlation on the preamble to detect the second long preamble. If the predefined symbol is a second long signal field, a MIMO transmission is detected by performing a cyclic redundancy check to detect the second long signal field.