An MBER–BLAST algorithm for OFDM–SDMA communication using particle swarm optimization

AbstractA multiple antenna‐aided, minimum bit error rate–Bell Laboratories‐layered space–time (MBER–BLAST) multiuser detection algorithm is proposed for uplink orthogonal frequency division multiplexing–space division multiple access (OFDM–SDMA) communication to increase the capacity of the system. The proposed algorithm overcomes the limitations of the conventional detectors when the number of users exceed the number of receiver antennas. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed for finding the optimum weight vectors for MBER detector. PSO is well suited for physically realizable, real‐time applications, where low complexity and fast convergence are of absolute importance, while an optimum maximum likelihood (ML) detection using an exhaustive search method is prohibitively complex. The proposed algorithm outperforms the MBER detector and is capable of achieving performance close to that attained by ML detector at a significantly lower complexity, especially under high user loads. Simulation results show that MBER–BLAST detector promises substantially improved performance compared with the existing systems and offers a good performance–complexity trade‐off. It supports a large number of users by exploiting the capacity advantages of multiple antenna systems in rich scattering environments. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.