A Novel Symbol-Based near ML Detection Scheme with Unequal Error Protection for MIMO Systems

This paper proposes a new symbol-based near maximum likelihood (ML) detection scheme for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The proposed scheme can provide not only near ML performance with low complexity but also the capability of unequal error protection (UEP), i.e., data from different antennas can have different reliability. Compared to the conventional symbol-based near ML detection scheme, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can provide lower complexity under the same bit error rate (BER). Moreover, different from the common UEP schemes, which provide the UEP by the transmitter side, the proposed scheme provides the UEP by the receiver side via the property of symbol-based detection. Accordingly, the proposed scheme may create a new degree of freedom for the UEP design.