Performance Evaluation of the V-BLAST Coset Detector

In this paper we address the analytical performance evaluation of the V-BLAST coset detector (CD). The V-BLAST-CD is a sub-optimal detector for spatial multiplexing MIMO systems using non-binary constellations. In the V-BLAST-CD the decision on the transmitted vector is taken by applying the maximum likelihood detector on a list of candidate vectors containing only a subset of the possible transmitted vectors. The list of candidate vectors is generated by applying ordered V-BLAST detection to the subsets induced by partitioning the multidimensional signal constellation according to the mapping by set partitioning principle. Noting that the detection process of the V-BLAST-CD is similar to that of list decoding of error correcting codes, in order to evaluate the error performance of the V-BLAST-CD we can adopt the same approach used to evaluate the error performance of the generalized minimum distance decoding. The accuracy of the analysis is demonstrated by comparing it to simulation results