A finger configuration algorithm for a reconfigurable Rake receiver

Recent advances in the reconfigurability concept have now made it possible to design blocks of the transceiver chain which can change its functionality in real time. Reconfigurability in general can provide performance improvements and reduction of the battery power consumption. In this paper we focus on the well-known Rake principle and we propose a reconfigurable receiver structure, able to support the required processing for a RAKE combination and a one-stage inter-path interference canceller (IC). This approach allows a more efficient use of the constraint calculation power of the reception block and improves the system performance. Through theoretical analysis and simulation, we also investigate a controller which can supervise, at run-time, switching between the two possible configurations.