Joint demodulation and iterative multi-user decoding for SFH/SSMA networks

We study the problem of multiuser detection in the context of slow frequency hop spread spectrum multiple access (SFH/SSMA) systems. In particular, we study the demodulation and decoding aspects of multiuser reception for SFH/SSMA and propose methods which improve the capacity of the system. In particular, we propose and evaluate the joint demodulation of multiple symbols (defined as `type´) and the use of iterative type decoding after the demodulation. Preliminary results for hard-decision iterative decoding of Reed Solomon (RS) coded SFH/SSMA indicate that capacity improvements in excess of 60% can be achieved with our multiuser detection scheme over the traditional non-collaborative erasure/error-decoding of RS-coded SFH/SSMA. We expect that iterative soft-decision decoding of RS codes will achieve even more significant capacity gains for SFH/SSMA