Abstract: The present invention uses a novel adaptive soft decision device in order to jointly optimize decision device and DFE operation. The soft decision device receives the input and output samples of the slicer and generates a feedback sample by non-linearly combining them with respect to a single decision reference parameter. Moreover, the soft decision device provides novel error terms used to adapt equalizer coefficients in order to jointly optimize decision device and equalizer coefficients.

Abstract: A digital communication receiver includes a blind equalizer using the Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA) to compensate for channel transmission distortion in digital communication systems. Improved CMA performance is obtained by using a partial trellis decoder to predict 1 bit or 2 bits of the corresponding 3-bit transmitted symbol. The predicted bits from the partial trellis decoder are used to reduce the effective number of symbols in the source alphabet, which reduces steady state jitter of the CMA algorithm. Specifically, the received input signal to the CMA error calculation is shifted up or down by a computed delta (&Dgr;), in accordance with the predicted bit(s). In addition, a different constant gamma (&ggr;), for the CMA error calculation is selected in accordance with the predicted bit(s).

Abstract: The present invention uses a feedback equalizer architecture with feedback samples comprised of weighted contributions of scaled soft and inversely-scaled hard decision samples, and adapts forward and feedback filters using weighted contributions of update error terms, such as Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA) and Least Mean Squares (LMS) error terms. Combining weights are selected on a symbol-by-symbol basis by a novel measure of current sample quality. Adaptation methods of the sample quality measure are discussed. Furthermore, the present invention contains an automatic gain control circuit whose gain is adjusted at every symbol instance by a stochastic gradient descent update rule, minimizing novel cost criteria, to provide scaling factors for the hard and soft decisions.

Abstract: A diversity receiver is coupled to a composite antenna having first and second antennas physically configured to provide one or more forms of diversity reception. The multiple channel diversity receiver includes first and second RF channels with joint signal processing. First and second RF signals are processed jointly in the multiple channel diversity receiver with respect to tuning, automatic gain control (AGC), baud clock recovery, RF carrier recovery and forward equalization. The multiple channels of the diversity receiver are linked or cross coupled to each other through respective joint processing circuitry. In particular, first and second RF tuners share a common local oscillator and a common AGC feedback loop. First and second front ends share a common baud timing loop and a common pilot carrier recovery loop. Finally, first and second diversity receiver channels share a common sparse equalization filter.

Abstract: A diversity receiver is coupled to a composite antenna having first and second antennas physically configured to provide one or more forms of diversity reception. The multiple channel diversity receiver includes first and second RF channels with joint signal processing. First and second RF signals are processed jointly in the multiple channel diversity receiver with respect to tuning, automatic gain control (AGC), baud clock recovery, RF carrier recovery and forward equalization. The multiple channels of the diversity receiver are linked or cross coupled to each other through respective joint processing circuitry. In particular, first and second RF tuners share a common local oscillator and a common AGC feedback loop. First and second front ends share a common baud timing loop and a common pilot carrier recovery loop. Finally, first and second diversity receiver channels share a common sparse equalization filter.

Abstract: A diversity receiver is coupled to a composite antenna having first and second antennas physically configured to provide one or more forms of diversity reception. The multiple channel diversity receiver includes first and second RF channels with joint signal processing. First and second RF signals are processed jointly in the multiple channel diversity receiver with respect to tuning, automatic gain control (AGC), baud clock recovery, RF carrier recovery and forward equalization. The multiple channels of the diversity receiver are linked or cross coupled to each other through respective joint processing circuitry. In particular, first and second RF tuners share a common local oscillator and a common AGC feedback loop. First and second front ends share a common baud timing loop and a common pilot carrier recovery loop. Finally, first and second diversity receiver channels share a common sparse equalization filter.

Abstract: Methods and systems for effectuating simultaneous transmission of a standard analog television video signal and a data signal. A transmitter system comprises an analog video signal path and a data signal path. The data signal path produces a data signal that is added to, combined with, or otherwise imposed on the video signal, so as to be substantially in quadrature with the video signal as sensed by television receivers in the broadcast region. An abatement signal is generated and applied to the video signal in order to correct for effects of the data on the video signal. The abatement signal is generated based on feedback control metric signals obtained from receiver emulation which uses as input a signal corresponding to the television signal as transmitted. The feedback control metric signals can also used to control the modulation of the data, for example, by adjusting the interpolation of the data based on the amplitude and frequency responses of the data signal.

Abstract: A diversity receiver is coupled to a composite antenna having first and second antennas physically configured to provide one or more forms of diversity reception. The multiple channel diversity receiver includes first and second RF channels with joint signal processing. First and second RF signals are processed jointly in the multiple channel diversity receiver with respect to tuning, automatic gain control (AGC), baud clock recovery, RF carrier recovery and forward equalization. The multiple channels of the diversity receiver are linked or cross coupled to each other through respective joint processing circuitry. In particular, first and second RF tuners share a common local oscillator and a common AGC feedback loop. First and second front ends share a common baud timing loop and a common pilot carrier recovery loop. Finally, first and second diversity receiver channels share a common sparse equalization filter.

Abstract: A transmission channel equalizer system may be used to process either signals that have been modulated according to quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) or vestigial sideband modulation (VSB) to convey digital symbols. The equalizer system includes a sparse digital filter having coefficients which are adaptively updated. The filter system includes a finite impulse response (FIR) filter which processes modulated pass-band RF signals and an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter which processes demodulated base-band signals. At least one of the FIR and IIR filters is implemented as a sparse filter. The filter system is responsive to a control signal to switch between processing QAM and VSB signals. The update algorithm for the equalizer employs a constant modulus algorithm (CMA) to acquire the digital signal and a decision directed (DD) algorithm to track the digital signal. The CMA algorithm used when VSB signals are processed is a single axis CMA (SACMA) algorithm.

Abstract: An adaptive equalizer for use in blind equalization systems to compensate for transmission channel distortion and noise in a digital communication system uses multiple quantization levels for implementation of the Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA). Different quantization levels are used in different regions of the CMA error function for both passband and baseband equalizers. In one embodiment, a quantizer with a step rise having logarithmic scale is used to digitize the CMA error function. In particular, a quantizer with a step rise in which each level of the quantizer step rise is a power of 2 is used to digitize the CMA error function. In another embodiment, a quantizer with a step rise in which each level of the quantizer step rise is the sum of two or more logarithmic scales is used to digitize the CMA error function.

Abstract: An adaptive equalizer for use in blind equalization systems to compensate for transmission channel distortion and noise in a digital communication system quantizes the input signal samples to generate a quantized implementation of the Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA). To quantize the input signal samples, a nearest-element decision device (a slicer), that is typically present in a digital receiver, is used to pre-compute the quantized CMA error function. The number of unique values for the CMA error term is thereby reduced, and the reduced number of CMA error term values are stored in a lookup table. By greatly reducing the number of received signal values used in the CMA error calculation a relatively small lookup table can be used to compute the CMA error function. Passband implementation is accommodated by incorporating the signal de-rotation factor into the lookup table entries. In one embodiment the CMA multiply operation is replaced with shifts and adders.

Abstract: A slicer for a decision feedback error equalizer system which processes trellis encoded data using the ATSC trellis code is implemented in two parts. A first part includes a single-stage trellis decoder which estimates the value of a single bit of the symbol. The second part includes two trellis decoders each of which estimates the values of respective subsets of the symbols in the alphabet given that the single bit is zero or one. A multiplexer is responsive to the single stage trellis decoder to direct the received digital samples to one of the two trellis decoders in the second part of the slicer. An alternative slicer includes a first part which estimates two bits of the output symbols and selects from among four decoders in the second part in order to fully decode the symbols. The smart slicer can be generalized for any set-partitioned code with or without a feedback convolutional code.