A hybrid probabilistic data association-sphere decoding detector for multiple-input-multiple-output systems

Abstract

A hybrid probabilistic data association (PDA)-sphere decoding (SD) algorithm is proposed for signal detection in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The key idea is to reduce the dimension of the problem solved via SD by first running a single stage of the PDA to fix symbols that can be decoded with high reliability. Simulations under a multiple antenna Rayleigh fading scenario show that this two-step algorithm attains a considerably better performance-complexity tradeoff than SD and PDA for low to moderate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or higher problem dimensions.