Symbol detection in spatial multiplexing system using particle swarm optimization meta-heuristics

SUMMARY - Symbol detection in multi-input multi-output (MIMO) communication systems using different particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms is presented. This approach is particularly attractive as particle swarm intelligence is well suited for real-time applications, where low complexity and fast convergence is of absolute importance. While an optimal maximum likelihood (ML) detection using an exhaustive search method is prohibitively complex, PSO-assisted MIMO detection algorithms give near-optimal bit error rate (BER) performance with a significant reduction in ML complexity. The simulation results show that the proposed detectors give an acceptable BER performance and computational complexity trade-off in comparison with ML detection. These detection techniques show promising results for MIMO systems using high-order modulation schemes and more transmitting antennas where conventional ML detector becomes computationally non-practical to use. Hence, the proposed detectors are best suited for high-speed multi-antenna wireless communication systems.