Improved K-best sphere decoder with a look-ahead technique for multiple-input multiple-output systems

In this paper, a novel look-ahead technique taking advantages of the signal diversity is proposed to improve the performance of the conventional K-best sphere decoding algorithm that solves the MIMO detection problem of the spatial multiplexing scheme. We also examine the complexity overhead and the performance gain. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can achieve better performance with lower complexity by using a smaller K value than the one used in the conventional K-best algorithm.