Complexity reduction of blind decoding schemes using CRC splitting

Blind decoding, used on control channels of some multi-user wireless access systems, is a technique for achieving adaptive modulation and coding. The idea is to adapt the modulation and coding scheme to the channel quality but instead of signaling the parameters used explicitly, the receiver blindly tries a number of fixed parameter combinations until a successful decoding attempt is detected, with the help of a cyclic redundancy check. In this paper we suggest a new method for reducing the complexity and energy consumption associated with such blind decoding schemes. Our idea is to use a mini-CRC injected early in the data stream to determine if the current decoding attempt is using the correct modulation and coding parameters. We analyze and exemplify the complexity gain of this approach and also investigate the impact of the rearrangement of the CRC scheme in terms of the probability of undetected error. The presented results for the complexity gain are promising and the impact on the error detection capability turns out to be small if any.