On ACK/NACK messages detection in the LTE PUCCH with multiple receive antennas

In this paper, we study ACK/NACK messages detection in the LTE physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) with multiple receive antennas. The LTE PUCCH is typically characterized by high interference variability due to severe inter-user interferences and slot-level frequency hopping. We present detection methods applicable for the cases when the noise variances at the receiver are known and unknown. Noise here may comprise both thermal noise and interference. The proposed detection technique is based on the generalized likelihood-ratio test (GLRT) paradigm. Simulation results show that GLRT-based detector offers a significant gain over the training-based maximum-likelihood detector when the noise variances in two slots are different and unknown. For the case when the noise variances at the receiver are known, the GLRT-based detector has nearly the same performance as the training-based maximum-likelihood detector.