Comparison of different MIMO-OFDM signal detectors for LTE

Long Term Evolution (LTE), is a standard for radio communications of highspeed data transmission for mobile phones and data business [1]. It is based on the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM)/ Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution (EDGE) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)/ High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network technologies, increasing the capacity and speed using new modulation techniques [1, 2]. Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) are the key technologies of LTE. MIMO technology can significantly increase channel capacity and spectrum efficiency without occupying any more bandwidth. Signal detection algorithms are studied in this thesis: Zero-Forcing (ZF) detector, Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) detector, Maximum Likelihood (ML) detector, QR decomposition with M-algorithm maximum likelihood detector (QRM-MLD) and Sphere Decoding (SD) detector. The results of the study show that the optimal signal detector is superior to other signal detectors on bit-error-rate (BER) performance. The BER performance in a correlated MIMO-OFDM scenario of the detectors are also studied.