A comparison of detection algorithms including BLAST for wireless communication using multiple antennas

Detection algorithms for single user wireless communication using multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver in a Rayleigh (flat) fading environment are compared. The system includes N transmitting antennas, M receiving antennas (N⩽M) and repetition coding at the transmitter (delay diversity). The linear decorrelating (LD) and minimum mean squared error (MMSE) detectors are compared with their D-BLAST and V-BLAST versions using bit error ratio versus signal-to-noise ratio simulation. For BPSK, the MMSE detector and its BLAST versions perform best and yield almost indistinguishable BER curves. The LD detector performs worst. For fixed N, as M increases, all the BER curves converge. The effect of error propagation in the BLAST schemes is shown to be non-negligible