Signal detection method and receiver

A method of detecting signals at a receiver of a communication system with a multiple input multiple output antenna, the signal detection method comprising:

• calculating a square of the distance between a received signal vector and a channel status-considered a transmission symbol vector;
• classifying the square of the distance into first and second components;
• calculating a plurality of first soft symbol estimates by minimizing the first component;
• calculating a solution set of the first component on the basis of the plurality of first soft symbol estimates;
• selecting a part of the solution set of the first component ;
• calculating a plurality of second soft symbol estimates by using the selected solution set of the first component;
• calculating a solution set of the second component on the basis of the plurality of second soft symbol estimates;
• selecting a part of the solution set of the second component;
• and
• calculating a final solution set by doing the sum of the selected first solution set of the first component and the selected solution set of the second component.

A receiver for a communication system with a multiple input multiple output antenna, the receiver comprising:

• a plurality of receiver antennas for receiving signals;
• a detector for producing the likelihood of the respective bits of the signals from the receiver antenna and detecting signals;
• and
• a decoder for decoding the signals detected from the detector,
• wherein the likelihood is produced by classifying a square of the distance between a received signal vector and a channel status-considered transmission symbol vector into first and second components, and using a plurality of first soft symbol estimates obtained through minimizing the first component, a plurality of second soft symbol estimates obtained through minimizing the second component, first points around the plurality of first soft symbol estimates on a constellation, and second points around the plurality of second soft symbol estimates on the constellation.