US Patent 7254192 Iterative detection in MIMO systems

Detection for a MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) wireless communications system with symbols iteratively detected in subsets with maximum likelihood hard decisions within subsets. Previously detected subsets of symbols are used to regenerate corresronding input signals for interference cancellation. With a 4-transmitter antenna, 4-receiver antenna system, two subsets of two symbols are possible with the first two symbols detected with zero-forcing or MMSE soft estimates which feed maximum likelihood hard decisions; and the hard decision for the first two symbols are used for interference cancellation followed by zero-forcing or MMSE soft estimates for the second two symbols which then feed further maximum likelihood hard decisions.