MIMO receiver designs with joint decoding, channel estimation and synchronization

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques are essential in the current and next generation communication standards due to the high spectral efficiency and/or link reliability they are able to provide. A significant problem with MIMO systems is the high complexity of their transceivers including the antenna deployment and signal detection/decoding. The problem becomes more complicated in a practical system where the true channel state information (CSI) is unavailable. This dissertation explores the application of iterative processing to the problem of joint data detection, decoding, channel estimation and synchronization in MIMO systems. The first iterative design considered is a spatial multiplexing MIMO system with memoryless quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). Next the iterative receiver design for continuous phase modulation (CPM) with memory is addressed. Finally the focus is switched from a spatial multiplexing MIMO system to a distributed sensor orthogonal space-time block coding (OSTBC) system where the goal is to exploit spatial diversity to increase link range. The problem of synchronization and channel estimation is significantly more challenging in such a distributed system compared with typical co-located MIMO arrays.