1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a communications receiver configured to receive both a multiple stream communication signal and a single stream communication signal.
2. Related Art
A communication system typically involves transmitting an information signal as a communications signal from a communications transmitter to a communications receiver over a communication channel. The communications transmitter may include a single transmit antenna to produce a single stream communications signal or multiple transmit antennas to produce a multiple stream communications signal.
The communication receiver may include multiple receive antennas to receive the communications signal as it traverses through the communication channel. Commonly, the communication receiver may process the received communication signal according to a known single stream communications standard, such as, but not limited to, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11a™ standard, the IEEE 802.11b™ standard, the IEEE 802.11g™ standard, or a known multiple stream communications standard, such as, but not limited to, the IEEE 802.11n™ standard, but not both. The IEEE 802.11a™ standard, the IEEE 802.11b™ standard, the IEEE 802.11g™, and the 802.11n™ standard are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. A communications receiver processing the received communication signal using the known single stream communication standard is unable recover the information signal from the multiple stream communication signal. Likewise, a communications receiver processing the received communication signal using the known multiple stream communication standard is unable recover the information signal from the single stream communication signal.
Therefore, what is needed is a communications receiver that is capable of recovering an information signal from both a single stream communications signal using a known single stream communication standard and a multiple stream communications signal using a known multiple stream communication standard.
The present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the reference number.