Patent ID: 7583763

Claim:
A method for detecting a transmitted signal vector, wherein said transmitted signal vector is detected from a signal vector received over a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication channel, comprising: providing a signal vector detector having a channel processor and a descent stage processor; defining a reception lattice comprising a plurality of reception lattice points using said channel processor, in accordance with an estimated channel matrix, a predetermined transmitted signal constellation, and a predetermined number of data sub-streams, wherein each of said reception lattice points is describable as a linear combination of spanning vectors of said reception lattice, and wherein each member of a transmitted signal constellation corresponds to a respective reception lattice point; traversing said reception lattice from an initial reception lattice point to a final reception lattice point using said descent stage processor, by iteratively: obtaining, for a current reception lattice point, a set of candidate neighboring reception lattice points by moving one unit vector from said current reception lattice point in a forward direction and in a backward direction along each one of said spanning vectors, selecting from said set a neighboring reception lattice point having a smaller distance from said received signal vector than a distance between said current lattice point to said received signal vector as the current reception lattice point for a subsequent iteration, and terminating said iterative selecting when a current reception lattice point having a smaller distance from said received signal vector than respective distances of all of the neighboring lattice points in said set is obtained; and detecting said transmitted signal vector as said respective member of said transmitted signal constellation corresponding to said final reception lattice point.