METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COHERENT COMMUNICATION RECEPTION IN A SPREAD-SPECTRUM COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

摘要

A method and apparatus is provided for facilitating coherent communication reception. A received reference symbol coded spread-spectrum communication signal is despread with a spreading code to derive a stream of reference samples (152) and a stream of data samples (158). The channel response is estimated by utilizing the stream of reference samples (152). An offset frequency detector (443) determines an offset to be applied to the received signal via a frequency locked loop (456), while a timing control (176) compensates for slow timing drift and fast fading based on power estimates derived from the stream of reference samples (152) and/or the stream of data samples (158). A rate estimator determines the rate at which the information was encoded, and the rate information is used to optimize the timing control (176), frequency offset detector (443) and channel estimator (154). Thus an improved detection of estimated data symbols from the stream of received data samples (158) is provided.