Apparatus and method for finding likely combinations of transmitted symbols

摘要

A high throughput and scalable MIMO detector can use a K-Best detection algorithm to find K combinations of transmit symbols that are likely to be the symbols that were actually transmitted. The K-best MIMO detector can include a plurality of stages, where each stage may correspond to a transmit antenna, and each stage can find K best symbol combinations based on information from a previous stage. To find the new K best symbol combinations, at each stage, a plurality of metrics for potential combinations are computed and sorted by magnitude. The MIMO detector preferably uses a high throughput, merge sorting algorithm to sort the metrics.

主权项

1. A method of finding likely combinations of transmitted symbols from a plurality of received signals for use in reconstructing streams of transmitted information in a multiple-input multiple-output transmission system, the method comprising:
identifying a set of likely symbols for each of a plurality of transmitters output sequentially, wherein identifying a set of likely symbols for one of the transmitter outputs comprises:
computing multiple sets of metrics, wherein each set is computed based on previously identified likely symbols associated with other transmitter outputs;sorting the metrics in each set; andsorting results of the sorted metrics.