Computational Complexity Reduction of MMSE-IC MIMO Turbo Detection

Abstract

High data rates and error-rate performance approaching close to theoretical limits are key trends for evolving digital wireless communication applications. To address the first requirement, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques are adopted in emergent wireless communication standards and applications. On the other hand, turbo concept is used to alleviate the destructive effects of the channel and ensure error-rate performance close to theoretical limits. At the receiver side, the incorporation of MIMO techniques and turbo processing leads to increased complexity that has a severe impact on computation speed, power consumption and implementation area. Because of its increased complexity, the detector is considered critical among all receiver components. Low-complexity algorithms are developed at the cost of decreased performance. Minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) solution with iterative detection and decoding shows an acceptable tradeoff. In this paper, the complexity of the MMSE algorithm in turbo detection context is investigated thoroughly. Algorithmic computations are surveyed to extract the characteristics of all involved parameters. Consequently, several decompositions are applied leading to enhanced performance and to a significant reduction of utilized computations. The complexity of the algorithm is evaluated in terms of real-valued operations. The proposed decompositions save an average of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] of required operations for 2 [Formula: see text] 2 and 4 [Formula: see text] 4 MIMO systems, respectively. In addition, the hardware implementation designed applying the devised simplifications and decompositions outperforms available state-of-the-art implementations in terms of maximum operating frequency, execution time, and performance.