Techniques for reducing joint detection complexity in a channel-coded multiple-input multiple-output communication system

A method of joint detection of channel-coded signals in a multiple-input multiple-output system, comprising:

• receiving, at a receiver, first and second symbol streams;
• performing hard-decision symbol detection on the first and second symbol streams to provide associated first and second estimated symbol streams;
• and
• detecting channel-coded signals in the first and second symbol streams using neighbor search algorithm with ordered successive interference cancellation based detection on the first and second estimated symbol streams, wherein interference in the second symbol stream that is attributable to the first symbol stream is substantially removed prior to decoding the second symbol stream.

A communication device, comprising:

• an input device;
• and
• a circuit coupled to the input device, wherein the circuit is configured to:
• determine whether a decoded signal associated with a first symbol stream passes a cyclic redundancy check;
• detect, when the decoded signal associated with the first symbol stream passes the cyclic redundancy check, channel-coded signals in the first symbol stream and a second symbol stream using minimum mean squared error with ordered successive interference cancellation based detection;
• and
• detect, when the decoded signal associated with the first symbol stream fails the cyclic redundancy check, the channel-coded signals in the first and second symbol streams using neighbor search algorithm based detection.