Channel state information reporting for a successively decoded, precoded multi-antenna transmission

A wireless communication device comprising:

• two or more receive antennas configured to receive a forthcoming, precoded multi-antenna transmission;
• receive processing circuits configured to successively decode in a certain sequence one or more codewords of the transmission;
• and
• a channel state information reporting circuit configured to:
• form, for each of a plurality of candidate transmission ranks of the transmission, a sequence of codewords by iteratively adding codewords allowed for that rank to the sequence, adding at any given point in the sequence the codeword expected to yield the highest individual information rate if decoded at that point in the sequence, considering the different rates possible under different precodings of the transmission;
• compute, for each candidate transmission rank, a sum information rate across the codewords in the sequence formed for that rank, based on said highest individual information rates expected for those codewords if decoded in that sequence;
• select the candidate transmission rank having the highest sum information rate;
• report channel state information that indicates the selected transmission rank and the sequence of codewords formed for that rank.