Maximum likelihood detection of co-channel communication signals via exploitation of spatial diversity

A maximum-likelihood method is used to jointly detect multiple cochannel communication signals. The joint detection idea is explained by considering the simple case in which all the signals are synchronized. Extensions to more complicated cases for asynchronized and convolutionally coded signals are discussed. Computer simulations have been conducted to compare the performance of the proposed detection method with that of independent detection methods in some typical scenarios. The simulation results show that the performance gain is significant if some cochannel signals are closely spaced. Some suboptimal methods that require much less complexity than the full joint detection methods but have marginal performance loss are also discussed