New 2-D Adaptive K-Best Sphere Detection for Relay Nodes

Relay nodes are the main players of cooperative networks that used to improve the system performance and to offer virtual multiple antennas for limited antenna devices in a multi-user environment. However, employing relaying strategies requires considerable resources at the relay side and places a large burden on the relay helping node especially when considering the power consumption. Partial detection at the relay is one strategy that reduces the computational load and power consumption. In this paper, we propose a new 2-D Adaptive KBest Sphere Decoder (2-D AKBSD) for partial detection to be used MISO relays in cooperative networks. Simulation results show that 2-D AKBSD is capable of improving the system performance and also reduces its complexity. Keywords—Sphere Detection; K-Best; Relay; MIMO; MISO; Cooperative Communication