Adaptive MLSD for MIMO transmission systems with unknown subchannel orders

In the equalization of frequency-selective multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels it is usually assumed that the length of the channel impulse response (CIR), also referred to as the channel order, is known. However, this is not true in most practical situations and, in order to avoid the serious performance degradation that occurs when the CIR length is underestimated, a channel with "more than enough" taps is usually considered. This very frequently leads to overestimating the channel order, which increases the computational complexity of any maximum likelihood sequence detection (MLSD) algorithm, while degrading its performance at the same time. The problem of estimating a single channel order for a time and frequency selective MIMO channel has recently been tackled. However, this is an idealized approach, since a MIMO channel comprises multiple subchannels (as many as the number of inputs times that of the outputs), each of them possibly with its own order. In this paper, we introduce an algorithm for MLSD that incorporates the full estimation of the MIMO CIR parameters, including one channel order per output. The proposed technique is based on the per survivor processing (PSP) methodology, it admits both blind and semiblind implementations, depending on the availability of pilot data, and it is designed to work with time-selective channels. Besides the analytical derivation of the algorithm, we provide computer simulation results that illustrate the effectiveness of the resulting receiver.