A tree-search algorithm for signal detection and parameter estimation in multi-user communications

The problem of simultaneously detecting the information bits and estimating signal amplitudes and phases in a K-user asynchronous direct-sequence spread-spectrum multiple-access communication system is addressed. The joint maximum-likelihood (ML) estimator has a computational complexity that is exponential in the total number of bits transmitted, and thus does not represent a practical solution to the problem. An estimator that combines a suboptimum tree-search algorithm with a recursive least-squares estimator of complex signal amplitude is considered. The complexity of this estimator is O(K²) computations per decoded bit, and its performance is very close to that of the joint ML receiver. This receiver has the advantage that the transmitted signal powers and phases are extracted from the received signal in an adaptive fashion without the use of a test sequence