Patent ID: 8428169

Claim:
A method of reconstructing digital information in a multiple-input receiver from signals transmitted by a multiple-output transmitter, in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications channel, the method comprising: obtaining a plurality of signal streams from a plurality of transmitted signals, wherein the plurality of signal streams includes a first signal stream and a second signal stream; selecting a first candidate signal value for the first signal stream and a second candidate signal value for the second signal stream using a hard-decision demodulator; selecting a first plurality of additional candidate signal values for the first signal stream based on the first candidate signal value and a second plurality of additional candidate signal values for the second signal stream based on the second candidate signal value; computing a first and a second log-likelihood ratio (LLR) from the plurality of signal streams, wherein the first LLR is computed based on the first candidate signal and the first plurality of additional candidate signal values, and the second LLR is computed based on the second candidate signal and the second plurality of additional candidate signal values using a soft-decision demodulator; and estimating the digital information based on the computed LLR.