System and method for MIMO decoding

A wireless device comprising:

• a processor for controlling operation of the wireless device;
• a first input device coupled to the processor for accepting an input;
• at least one display device coupled to the processor for communicating an output to the user;
• a communications subsystem coupled to the processor for communicating with a communications network;
• a memory coupled to the processor;
• and
• a storage device coupled to the processor;
• the communications subsystem including a MIMO decoding module for decoding transmitted symbols transmitted by multiple transmit antennas using received signals received at multiple receive antennas in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system employing spatial multiplexing, a total number of dimensions of said MIMO system being a product of a number of said multiple receive antennas and the number two, said number two representing real and imaginary parts of a complex number, the MIMO decoding module having at least one hardware component for carrying out:
• retrieving received point coordinates of a received point for each of said dimensions from said received signals;
• retrieving estimated candidate coordinates of a plurality of candidates for each of said dimensions, said plurality of candidates being all possible candidates, each candidate of said plurality of candidates being a unique combination of possible symbols transmitted from said multiple transmit antennas, said possible symbols being chosen from a predefined finite set of potential symbols for each of said multiple transmit antenna, a number of said plurality of candidates being a product of a size of said predefined finite sets of potential symbols for all of said multiple transmit antenna;
• representing said received point coordinates and said estimated candidate coordinates for the plurality of candidates by a reduced bit representation, said reduced bit representation being a small number of most significant bits of a full bit representation of said received point coordinates and said estimated candidate coordinates, said reduced bit representation naturally dividing each said dimension into uniformly sized bit segments, said small number being a bit level;
• defining a bounded region surrounding said received point in said number of dimensions, said bounded region being a hypercube, said bounded region having a region segment in each said number of dimensions, said region segment in each of said number of dimensions being a bit segment for the received point coordinate in said dimension and the two adjacent bit segments adjacent to the bit segment for the received point coordinate in said dimension;
• for each one of said candidates, carrying out an elimination process including:
• determining a position of said candidate to be one of inside and outside said bounded region;
• eliminating said candidate if said candidate is outside said bounded region;
• and
• storing as a potential solution said candidate if said candidate is inside said bounded region;
• adding a further bit to said reduced bit representation of said received point coordinates and said estimated candidate coordinates for said ones of said candidates stored as said potential solution, thereby reducing a size of said uniformly sized bit segments in each of said dimensions thereby reducing a size of said bounding region and increasing said small number by one and said bit level by one;
• repeating said carrying out said elimination process for ones of said candidates stored as said potential solution and adding said further bit until all of said candidates stored as said potential solution have completed the elimination process and the resulting said potential solution includes a single solution at an end of said elimination process;
• and
• determining said transmitted symbols from said single solution found.