Performance of multistage multiuser detection in a fading multipath channel

In this paper we study the performance of multiuser detection in cellular uplink reception. The main motivation in this paper is not to study the performance in a near-far scenario, but to demonstrate the achievable capacity gain. To this end we apply the joint estimation and multistage detection algorithm developed previously (Fawer and Aazhang, 1995) in a multipath fading environment. We show that multiuser detection can be used effectively to increase the system capacity and range. The assessment is carried out by extensive simulations with up to 60 users using length 63 Gold codes in a two path Rayleigh channel, both with and without 1/2-rate coding