This article proposes a multistage soft decision equalization （SDE） technique for block transmission over frequency selective multi-input multi-output （MIMO） channels. Using the Toeplitz structure, the general signal model can be converted into a series of small-sized sub-signal models. For each sub-signal model, soft interference cancellation （SIC） is used firstly to remove partial effects of interfering symbols, then max-log-map sphere decoder is performed to get the desired a posteriori information. Simulation shows that with lower complexity the proposed method outperforms the probability data association SDE and the Schnorr-Euchner sphere decoder.
An optimal power allocation （OPA） method with mean channel gains is proposed for a multinode amplify-and-forward cooperative communication system. By making use of M-PSK modulation, a closed-form symbol-error-rate （SER） formulation and corresponding upper bound are first derived. Subsequently the OPA method is utilized to minimize the SER. Comparison of the SER of the proposed OPA method with that of the equal power allocation （EPA） method, shows that the SER of both methods, which is approximately optimal performance, is almost the same when relays are near the source. OPA outperforms the EPA when the relays are near the middle between the source and destination or near the destination. The proposed OPA method depends only on the ratio of mean channel gains of the source-to-relay to those of the relay-to-destination. Extensive simulations are performed to validate the theoretical results.
