Block based symbol detection for high rate space-time coded systems

A new block based symbol detection scheme is proposed for a class of high data rate space-time coded systems reported in the literature. We adopt the vertical Bell Labs layered space-time (V-BLAST) detection algorithm to detect the transmitted symbols at the receiver end, since it yields a reasonable trade-off between performance and computational complexity with respect to the optimal maximum likelihood detection. By exploiting the distinctive structures resulting from the space-time block coded systems, we show that the associated V-BLAST detection can be performed in a block-by-block manner: in each iteration stage, a block of symbols is simultaneously detected. Compared with the conventional symbol-by-symbol based V-BLAST, the block based detection tends to reduce computations and decoding delays since it involves fewer iterations. Computer simulations show that the proposed block based symbol detection can achieve nearly the same performance as the symbol-by-symbol based one.