Abstract: A method and apparatus is described for implementing adaptive smart antenna processing in a receiving communication station that includes an array of antennas and means for adaptive smart antenna processing, the method and apparatus including determining weight vectors for the adaptive smart antenna processing. Using the invention offers advantages when operating in a low SINR environment, for example, in a mobile environment in which the remote users are travelling at high speeds, hence the signals undergo fading. One aspect is hybrid weight adaptation that starts off with a method with good convergence properties, for example, one known to converge in a low SINR environment then switches to a method that converges rapidly, for example when started with relatively high quality initial conditions. To deal with high mobility, the weights determined from data at a particular burst are applied on that particular burst. Such weights may not be optimal for the subsequent bursts.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for adaptively producing transmitted signals and processing received signals in a communication system which includes smart antenna array of antenna elements. When processing received signals, the invention modifies an existing processing scheme by incorporating information about a second set of signals for which training or other characteristic information such as a reference is unknown to information about a first set of signals for which characteristic information such as a reference is known, prior to executing the processing scheme. This approach can be used to modify the receive weights which determine the relative weight assigned to the signals received from each of a plurality of antenna elements to take into account the presence of a changing interference environment. This permits an adaptive updating of the receive weights based on the additional information provided by the second set of data.

Abstract: In a communication network, a method for channel quality estimation, without the need for a reference (uncorrupted) signal, comprises the steps of: processing a received signal utilizing a non-redundant error correction scheme to observe at least one symbol; producing an error signal in response to the observation; and counting a quantity of the error signal during a predetermined time interval to provide a symbol error count. A device for channel quality estimation, without the need for a reference (uncorrupted) signal, is also described.

Abstract: A reduced complexity maximum likelihood multiple symbol differential detector which utilizes a maximum likelihood sequence estimation of the transmitted phase and does so by expanding the observation window to observe the received symbol over N signal intervals and making a simultaneous decision on N-1 symbols. The phase of the received signal is calculated up front and thus the detector requires only real subtractions and real additions as opposed to complex multiplications and additions. Furthermore, the detector does not sacrifice performance over conventional prior art detectors.