QR-LRL Signal Detection for Spatially Multiplexed MIMO Systems

The performance of the ordered successive interference cancellation (OSIC) signal detection method is well known to depend on the successful detection of the first layer. In a previous work, in an effort to mitigate the error propagation effect, all the constellation points were tried as the first layer symbol, thereby achieving a better performance. In this letter, we show that the selection of the first layer impacts the error performance significantly, and based on the observation, we propose a novel signal detection method QR-LRL. In the proposed work, the least reliable layer (LRL) is chosen to be the first layer, which is shown to be the best choice in terms of noise enhancement in detecting the other layers. Also, we discuss Log Likelihood Ratio (LLR) computation when the proposed method is used. Computer simulations confirm the efficacy of the proposed method.