A simple soft linear detection for coded multi-input multi-output systems

We propose a very simple and efficient soft linear multi-input multi-output (MIMO) detection scheme. The detection process is divided into two separate problems. The proposed scheme first detects MIMO symbols using conventional linear detection methods and produces soft bit information using a simple soft demapping method. Next, we refine the soft information by accounting for uneven post-detection noise variance across MIMO layers. From the simulation result investigated in this paper, we first emphasize that powerful channel coding may suppress the differences of diversity gains among various MIMO detection schemes. This implies that the channel decoding operation may not be transparent to performance gain that resulted from MIMO detection process. The proposed scheme concentrates on accurate estimation of soft post-MIMO detected information in a very simple manner, rather than concentrating on a complex MIMO detection scheme prior to decoding process. In combination with turbo codes, the proposed scheme produces comparable performance to maximum likelihood detection, even with the simplest scheme such as zero forcing detection, with drastically reduced complexity.