Signal-to-noise ratio and combiner weight estimation for symbol stream combining

A method is presented for signal to noise ratio (SNR) and symbol stream combiner weight estimation. The SNR estimator employs absolute value moments as in an earlier method. The main contribution is that a new algorithm is derived for the combiner weight estimator to remove the large bias at low SNRs. The new algorithm is simulated to combine two independent symbol streams at various SNRs. As an example, the combining two symbol streams at SNRs of -1 dB and -7 dB, conbiner weight estimates using 1000 samples for the -1 dB stream and 10,000 samples for the -7 dB stream achieve an output SNR of -0.039 dB, which is just 0.012 dB below the theoretical limit achievable with perfect knowledge of the SNRs.