Abstract: A technique is provided for estimating time of arrival of a signal transmitted as a pulse and received as a sum of pulses. The received signal is filtered with a novel filter that lowers the early side lobes of the received signal to noise level. A first energy rise point is identified at a point of the main lobe of the filtered received signal, at which the energy is higher than the noise by a predetermined level. Starting from the identification of the first energy rise points, the time of arrival is estimated via curve matching, in which the shape of the filtered received signal is matched to the shape of composed by a sum of one or more reference curves that are shifted both in time and in energy. The reference curves are found by applying to the transmitted signal the same filter applied to the received signal.

Abstract: A technique is provided for estimating time of arrival of a signal transmitted as a pulse and received as a sum of pulses. The received signal is filtered with a novel filter that lowers the early side lobes of the received signal to noise level. A first energy rise point is identified at a point of the main lobe of the filtered received signal, at which the energy is higher than the noise by a predetermined level. Starting from the identification of the first energy rise points, the time of arrival is estimated via curve matching, in which the shape of the filtered received signal is matched to the shape of composed by a sum of one or more reference curves that are shifted both in time and in energy. The reference curves are found by applying to the transmitted signal the same filter applied to the received signal.

Abstract: A method is provided for memory management in a communications system using a HARQ error control mechanism, in which a transmitter establishes a plurality of HARQ channels with a receiver. The method includes determining whether each received encoded HARQ packet needs to be combined with an encoded HARQ packet already stored in HARQ memory. In case a received encoded HARQ packet does not need to be combined, the method determines whether there is a free memory space available in the HARQ memory for storing that received encoded HARQ packet, and if so, allocating that free memory space for storage of that received encoded HARQ packet. If not, the method determines whether a certain amount of memory space can be forced to be freed, and if so, de-allocates it and then allocates it for storage of that received encoded HARQ packet, that packet is sent to an FEC decoder.

Abstract: A method is provided for memory management in a communications system using a HARQ error control mechanism, in which a transmitter establishes a plurality of HARQ channels with a receiver. The method includes determining whether each received encoded HARQ packet needs to be combined with an encoded HARQ packet already stored in HARQ memory. In case a received encoded HARQ packet does not need to be combined, the method determines whether there is a free memory space available in the HARQ memory for storing that received encoded HARQ packet, and if so, allocating that free memory space for storage of that received encoded HARQ packet. If not, the method determines whether a certain amount of memory space can be forced to be freed, and if so, de-allocates it and then allocates it for storage of that received encoded HARQ packet, that packet is sent to an FEC decoder.

Abstract: An embodiment of a device for processing at least an incoming signal in a wireless communication system, said incoming signal being sent by a base station and comprising successive frames, each of which comprising at least a training symbol correlated to said base station, and a data symbol carrying message data. The device comprises at least: a first module digitizing and sampling the incoming signal; a second module demodulating said digitized and sampled incoming signal, and generating a corresponding frequency domain symbol; a timing synchronization and scanning module suitable for detecting at least a time offset of said training symbol by using said corresponding frequency domain symbol; and a timing post processing module for processing said timing offset and for generating an improved timing offset used to start the sampling of following incoming signal.