Turbo multiuser detection with unknown interferers

Abstract

We consider the problem of turbo multiuser detection for synchronous and asynchronous code-division multiple-access (CDMA) in the presence of unknown users. Turbo multiuser detectors, as previously developed, typically require knowledge of the signature waveforms of all of the users in the system and ignore users whose signature sequences are unknown, e.g., users outside the cell. We develop turbo multiuser detection for CDMA uplink systems and other environments in which the receiver has knowledge of the signature waveforms of only K/spl breve//spl les/ K users. Subspace techniques are used to estimate the interference from the unknown-users and the interference estimate is subtracted from the received signal. We see that the new receiver significantly outperforms the conventional turbo multiuser receiver for moderate and high signal-to-noise ratios. It is also seen that the traditional turbo receiver provides little gain through iteration when unknown users are present.