Patent ID: 8259833

Claim:
A method for processing signals, especially a Maximum Likelihood (ML) demodulation of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) signals, in a digital communications system, having a number of transmit antennas transmitting n T symbols, the method comprising: a) using x m , denoting symbols transmitted, wherein m=1 . . . n T , b) given a channel, selecting i and j and making pre-calculations facilitating finding a best combination of X 1 . . . X i+1 , X i+1 . . . X j−1 , X j+1 . . . X nT given X i , X j and a received signal, c) going through every combination X 1 . . . X i−1 , X i+1 . . . X j−1 , X j+1 . . . X nT and projecting in a number of directions for each of said combinations and generating a list of candidate combinations of X i and X j for each combination X 1 . . . X i−1 , X i+1 . . . X j−1 , X j+1 . . . X nT , and hence generating a list of candidate combinations X 1 . . . X nt , and d) providing a maximum-likelihood symbol combination.