New hardware-efficient ML detection for spatial modulation scheme

In this paper, we propose a new hardware-efficient ML decoding algorithm for a spatial modulation scheme which is basically constructed by serially concatenating maximum-ratio receive combiners with traditional slicers. With respect to complex multiplications, the new algorithm has a greatly reduced decoding complexity compared to the conventional one, especially, for higher-order modulation. This is mainly because the complexity of the slicer is practically negligible without regard to a modulation order.