Computational efficiency of list sphere detection

In this paper the performance of a promising MIMO detection algorithm, list sphere detection, is evaluated for a range of list lengths and for four variations to the basic algorithm. The evaluation uses a MIMO-OFDM-BICM system simulation to show bit error performance versus the computational effort, and the results are compared to maximum likelihood detection. The results provide guidance on the selection of an appropriate list length and algorithm. In applications where a short list length must be used due to memory or computation constraints the results show the loss in performance that can be expected