Method and device for handling ranging signals in a wireless communications network

1. In a wireless communications network, a method for detecting and/or estimating a ranging signal, said method comprising:

at least one subscriber station transmitting said ranging signal to a base station in a wireless Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communications network, said ranging signal comprising a plurality of tiles,

for two or more of said plurality of tiles, said base station performing a plurality of multiplications between subscribers, wherein at least one of said plurality of multiplications is performed between non-adjacent subcarriers associated with one of said two or more of said plurality of tiles;

at said base station, summing the results of said plurality of multiplications, thereby obtaining mathematical correlations that comprise summed results; and

at said base station, detecting a code characterizing said ranging signal and/or estimating the timing offset of said ranging signal, based on the summed results.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein at least some of said mathematical correlations are correlations performed for respective tiles out of said plurality of tiles, with a pre-determined number of their respective neighboring tiles.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said predetermined number of the neighboring tiles is 1,2 or 3.

4. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising determining a pre-defined value for maximum allowable frequency offset, and performing correlations for any given tile with as many neighboring tiles as there are within said maximum allowable frequency offset.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein at least some of said mathematical correlations are short autocorrelations of respective tiles out of said plurality of tiles for use in determining weak hypothesis to be discarded and wherein longer autocorrelations are performed for the remaining hypothesis for final detection.

6. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising multiplying said mathematical correlations with a corresponding frequency domain window and applying code detection and ranging estimation on the resulting multiplication product.

7. The method according to claim 1 , where said estimating further comprises correlating said mathematical correlations with an exponent that is associated with delay hypothesis.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said estimating further comprises using a coarse IFFT to estimate said timing offset.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said mathematical correlations are autocorrelations performed across two adjacent tiles of said two or more of said plurality of tiles.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said mathematical correlations are performed for a plurality of correlation vectors.

11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said performing a plurality of multiplications between subcarriers comprises performing at least one of said mathematical correlations on said non-adjacent subcarriers associated with said one of said two or more of said plurality of tiles and performing at least another one of said mathematical correlations on subcarriers belonging to different tiles.

12. A wireless receiver for detecting and/or estimating a ranging signal, said receiver comprising:

an interface configured to receive wireless transmission comprising said ranging signal that comprises a plurality of tiles from at least one wireless transmitter in a wireless Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communications network;

at least one processor configured to:

performing, for two or more of said plurality of tiles, a plurality of multiplications between subcarriers, wherein at least one of said plurality of multiplications is performed between non-adjacent subcarriers associated with one of said two or more of said plurality of tiles; and

summing the results of said multiplications, thereby obtaining mathematical correlations that comprise summed results; and

detecting a code characterizing said ranging signal and/or estimate the timing offset of said ranging signal, based on the summed results.

13. The receiver according to claim 12 , wherein at least some of said mathematical correlations are correlations of respective tiles out of said plurality of tiles with a pre-determined number of their respective neighboring tiles.

14. The receiver according to claim 12 , wherein said at least one processor is configured to perform short autocorrelations of at least some of respective tiles out of said plurality of tiles for discarding weak hypothesis and wherein said at least one processor is further configured to perform longer autocorrelations for the remaining hypothesis.

15. The receiver according to claim 14 , wherein said at least one processor is further configured to multiply at least some of said mathematical correlations with corresponding windows characterized by power delay profiles associated therewith and said receiver further comprises a detector configured to operate at one or more of said windows, in order to determine said ranging signal.

16. The receiver according to claim 15 , wherein said at least one processor is configured to multiply at least some of said mathematical correlations with more than one window, each window characterized by a different pre-defined power delay profile.

17. The receiver according to claim 12 , wherein said at least one processor is configured to perform said plurality of multiplications between subcarriers by performing said at least one of said mathematical correlations on said non-adjacent subcarriers associated with said one of said two or more of said plurality of tiles and performing at least another one of said mathematical correlations on subcarriers belonging to different tiles.