IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 12, NO.

8, AUGUST 2013

3783

Reduced-Complexity Robust MIMO Decoders

Boon Sim Thian and Andrea Goldsmith, Fellow, IEEE
AbstractWe propose a robust near maximum-likelihood
(ML) decoding metric that is robust to channel estimation
errors and is near optimal with respect to symbol error rate
(SER). The solution involves an exhaustive search through all
possible transmitted signal vectors; this search has exponential
complexity, which is undesirable in practical systems. Hence, we
also propose a robust sphere decoder to implement the decoding
with substantially lower computational complexity. For a real
4 4 MIMO system with 256QAM modulation and at SER
of 103 , our proposed robust sphere decoder has a coding loss
of only 0.5 dB while searching through 2360 nodes (or less)
compared to a 65536 node search using the exact ML metric.
This translates to up to 228 times fewer real multiplications
and additions in the implementation. We derive analytical upper
bounds on the pairwise codeword error rate and symbol error
rate of our robust sphere decoder and validate these bounds via
simulation.
Index TermsMultiple-input multiple-output communications, maximum likelihood decoding, imperfect channel state
information, robust decoding.

I. I NTRODUCTION

IRELESS communication systems with multiple transmit and receive antennas offer significant advantages
in terms of increased data rates and reliability than those
of single antenna systems [1] [2]. In order to benefit from
the advantages of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, it is essential for the transmitters and receivers to have
an accurate estimate of the channel state information (CSI).
However, this is a challenging task in practice, especially for
systems with a large number of transmit and receive antennas.
Typical channel estimation techniques include training-symbol
based methods [3] [4] and blind channel estimation strategies
[5] [6]. However, regardless of the estimation approach, the
CSI estimate is prone to measurement, quantization and other
sources of error.
The main objective in MIMO receiver design is to obtain
low symbol error rates (SER) with acceptable computational
complexity. Receiver design under the assumption of perfect
CSI has been an area of research for decades; some of the
well known low-complexity receivers assuming perfect CSI
are linear receivers such as zero-forcing and minimum meansquared errors receivers [7], and nonlinear receivers such as
decision feedback equalizers [8] and sphere decoders [9].

Manuscript received July 12, 2012; revised November 12, 2012 and March
5, 2013; accepted May 24, 2013. The associate editor coordinating the review
of this paper and approving it for publication was J. R. Luo.
B. S. Thian is with the Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore (e-mail:
thianbs@i2r.a-star.edu.sg).
A. Goldsmith is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford
University.
This work is supported in part by ONR under grant N00014-09-072-P00006
and by the DARPA ITMANET program under grant 110574-1-TFIND.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TWC.2013.071913.121019

A. Motivation
Practical MIMO systems must consider the design of receivers without the assumption of perfect CSI. Works that
consider receiver design under imperfect CSI include the
joint channel estimation and signal detection approach [10],
and designing transceivers based on the sum minimum mean
squared error (SMMSE) criteria [11] [12], and the maximim
criteria [13] [14].
However, most of these studies have focused on polynomialtime suboptimum decoders, with few considering the use of
the optimum decoding scheme. In addition, these studies also
consider very simple error models, such as only having upper
bounds on the magnitude of the errors. Furthermore, there has
also been very few analytical results on the SER performance
of the decoding schemes in the current literature.
B. Contributions
In this paper, we consider the effects of channel estimation
errors on the SER performance of MIMO systems. The
following are our main contributions:
1) Using a correlated multivariate Gaussian channel estimation error model, we derive the optimum decoding
metric (which is the maximum likelihood (ML) metric)
by utilizing the known second-order statistics of the
errors. This is important because in practice, channel
estimation errors are correlated due to channel correlation
as well as estimation methods which induce correlation
in the errors [4] [16] [17].
2) Using the optimum decoding metric for detection requires
an exhaustive search through all possible transmitted
signal vectors, and this is not implementable in a practical
setting. To overcome this problem, we propose an alternative decoding metric which approximates the optimum
rule. This approximated metric still accounts for error
correlation in that the main block diagonals of the error
covariance matrix are used.
3) Using the approximated metric, we formulate a tree
search algorithm that has substantially lower complexity
than the brute-force search of ML detection. We term the
algorithm as the robust sphere decoder.
4) We derive analytical upper bounds on the pairwise codeword error rate (and symbol error rate) performance of
the optimum ML metric as well as the robust sphere
decoder.
C. Organization
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. We
present our system model in Section II. We present the optimal
ML decoder and the robust sphere decoder in Section III.
Analytical results on the upper bounds of pairwise error
rates of the proposed decoders are presented in Section IV.

c 2013 IEEE
1536-1276/13$31.00 

3784

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 12, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013

Numerical results are presented and discussed in Section V,

and our conclusions along with future research directions are
presented in Section VI.
Notation: In this paper, vectors and matrices are denoted in
bold. All vectors are column vectors. The symbols ()T , ()
and || || denote transposition, pseudo-inverse and Euclidean
norm (l2 -norm) respectively. Ai,j denotes the (i, j)th element
of matrix A, and Ai:j,k:m denotes a subset of matrix A with
rows from i to j and columns from k to m of A. xi denotes
the ith element of the vector x and xN
i denotes the vector
T
[xi , xi+1 , . . . , xN ] . IP and 0P denote the P P identity
matrix and zero matrix respectively. The vectorization of a
P N matrix A, denoted by vec (A), is the vector of length
P N obtained by stacking the columns of A on top of one
another.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
The model for the generic multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) system can be written as
x + 

y = H
n,

(1)

In addition, the covariance matrix of E is given by



R = E vec (E) vec (E)T

E E21,1
E (E
1,1 E1,2
 )
2
E (E1,2 E1,1 )
E
E
1,2

=
..
..

.
.
E (EP,N E1,1 ) E (EP,N E1,2 )
E

Re (
y)
Im (
y)


Re(H)

Im(H)


Im(H)

Re(H)



Re (
x)
Im (
x)

Re (
n)
Im (
n)

,
(2)

where Re() and Im() denote the real and imaginary components, respectively. Letting y, H, x and n denote the first,
second, third and fourth terms of (2), respectively, we obtain
the equivalent real system model, y = Hx + n. In this
representation, the dimensionality of the system vectors are
doubled, i.e P = 2P  and N = 2N  . For the rest of the paper,
we will work with the real domain representation. Analysis is
identical for complex domain.
When the transmitted symbols are uniformly distributed,
the optimum decoder (in the sense of minimizing SER) is the
maximum likelihood (ML) decoder. It is given by

x = arg min ||y Hx||2 .

xX N

(3)

is not perfect, we can

When the estimate of the channel, H,
express this estimate in terms of the true channel matrix H as
= H + E,
H

(4)

where E is the error matrix; it is a Gaussian random matrix

with zero mean and uncorrelated
 with thetransmitted data x
k,m = 0, i, j, k, m.
i.e E Ei,j H
and channel estimate H,
The received signal vector is given by:
Ex + n.
y = Hx

(5)

E (E1,1 EP,N )
E (E1,2 EP,N )
..

.2 
E EP,N

(6)

The dimensions of RE are P N P N . For this system

model, the signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of
the ith received antenna is defined as:


N
Ex j=1 E H2i,j
SINR [i] =
,
(7)


N
Ex j=1 E E2i,j + n2

where Ex = |X1 | xX |x|2 is the average energy of the
transmitted symbols.
The average received SINR of the MIMO system is thus
defined as:

x2 , . . . , 
xN  ] denotes the complex transmitted
where 
x = [
x1 , 
xi is drawn from a
signal vector of dimension N  1 and 
T
set X of finite cardinality; 
y = [
y1 , 
y2 , . . . , 
yP  ] denotes
 is
the noisy received signal vector of dimension P  1; H



the channel matrix of dimension P N (where P N  )
 i,j CN (0, 1) representing
with independent elements H
T
n2 , . . . , 
nP  ]
uncorrelated Rayleigh fading [19]; and 
n = [
n1 , 
represents a vector of independent complex Gaussian noise
with 
ni CN (0, 2n2 IP  ).
The complex system model in (1) can be represented equivalently in the real domain by the following transformation:

..
.

SINR =

P
1 
SINR[i].
P i=1

(8)

A. Justification of the Error Model

We now justify the use of the additive error model (4),
together with the knowledge of its second-order statistics (6)
as follows. One of the most prevalent methods to estimate
the channel in MIMO systems is to transmit training symbols
and then estimate the channel based on received data and the
known symbols [3] [4]. Let h RP N 1 = vec (H) denote the
MIMO channel to be estimated, P RMP N denote a matrix
of pilot symbols, and n RM1 denote a vector of Gaussian
noise. Assume that both h and n are zero-mean real Gaussian
vectors with covariance matrices h and n respectively. The
received data is given by
y = Ph + n.

(9)

Using linear MMSE estimation (which is the optimum

estimator in this scenario), the estimate of h is given by [15]

where

= Ky,
h

(10)

1
.
K = h PT Ph PT + n

(11)

h, it can be shown
Defining the estimation error as e = h
that e is a zero-mean Gaussian vector with the following
covariance matrix [15]
h||2
e  E||h

1
= h h PT Ph PT + n
Ph .

(12)

In addition, by the orthogonality principle, e is uncorrelated

The output of the channel estimator described above
with h.
and the error covariance
provides both the channel estimate h
matrix e . In a similar way, many other training-based channel
estimators [3] [4] will lead to an error model that is consistent
with our model in (4) and (6).

THIAN and GOLDSMITH: REDUCED-COMPLEXITY ROBUST MIMO DECODERS

III. M AXIMUM - LIKELIHOOD D ECODING FOR MIMO

S YSTEMS WITH I MPERFECT CSI
A. Problem Formulation
Given the received signal model of (5) and the error
covariance matrix of (6), we can formulate the exact ML
decoding metric as


x ,

xML = arg max Pr y|H,

(13)
xX N

where

and
i,j =



x N Hx,
,
y|H,

The ML estimate of the transmitted vector x with error

covariance matrix given by (15) is


x

xML = arg max log Pr y|H,

xX N




T

1 y Hx
= arg min log det + y Hx
.
xX N

(16)
We can simplify the ML decoding metric in the special case
where channel estimations are independent and identically
distributed (i.i.d), as given in the following proposition.
Proposition 1. When the channel estimation errors are i.i.d
with zero mean and variance u2 , the off-diagonal elements
of RE are zero and the diagonal elements are u2 . Then, the
maximum-likelihood estimate of the transmitted vector x is

 N

N


2
2
2

log n + u
|xk |
xML = arg min
m=1

k=1

|(y Hx)m |

 .
+
N
2
2
2
|x
|
m=1 n + u
k
k=1
N


triangular matrix, and to use that to assist in a tree searchbased decoding strategy.
To proceed with this transformation, we pre-multiply y by
QT to obtain
+ QT Ex + QT n,
y = QT y = QT Hx

(17)

= u2 IP N , is a diagonal matrix with

Proof: Since RE
N
2
2
i,i = n + u k=1 |xk |2 , i. Thus, 1 is also a

1
N
2
2
2
diagonal matrix with 1
=

|x
|
, i.
k
n
u
i,i
k=1
By substituting and 1 into (16), we obtain Proposition
1.

+n
,
y = Rx + Ex

(19)

= QT E is the modified channel estimation error

where E
matrix; it has zero mean and covariance matrix given by:




T 

T
T
E
R = E vec Q E vec Q E
.
(20)
If RE is a dense matrix (each entry of RE is nonzero with

probability 1), then RE will also be a dense matrix. The exact

ML decoding metric can now be formulated as
xML = arg max Pr (y|R, x) ,

(21)

y|R, x N (Rx,  ) ,

(22)

xX N

where

and
i,j


=

n2 + xT RE(i1)N +1:iN,(j1)N +1:jN x, if i = j;

otherwise.
xT RE(i1)N +1:iN,(j1)N +1:jN x,
(23)

Instead of using  for decoding (similar to (16)), we make

an approximation by considering only the diagonal elements
  as follows:
of  , i.e we define

i,j if i = j;
 =

(24)
i,j
0,
otherwise.
A reduced complexity decoding algorithm can be imple as will be shown
mented based on the simplified matrix ,
in the next section. We define an approximate ML decoder
(which we call the robust near-ML decoding metric) as
N 

2

|(
y

Rx)
|


i
 +
xRNML = arg min
log
.
i,i

xX N

i,i

i=1

(25)

B. An Approximate Decoding Metric

A method for computing (16) or (17) involves an exhaustive
search over all plausible candidate vectors x; the computational complexity of implementing this decoder will grow
exponentially with the dimensions of the system and the
constellation size of the transmitted symbols. In addition, is
a function of x; finding the solution to (16) requires inversion
of an N N matrix for each candidate vector, and this
further increases the complexity. To reduce the complexity of
decoding while maintaining reasonable accuracy, we propose
an approximate metric to (16) and a reduced complexity search
into an upper
algorithm for it. The idea is to transform H

(18)

is the QR decomposition of the estimated

where QR = H
Since n is white, the statistics of QT n  n

channel matrix H.

are unchanged, i.e it is also white. We can then write y as:

(14)

n2 + xT RE(i1)N +1:iN,(j1)N +1:jN x, if i = j;

otherwise.
xT RE(i1)N +1:iN,(j1)N +1:jN x,
(15)

xX N

3785

In the special case of i.i.d channel estimation errors (Proposition 1), the approximate ML decoder (which is the same as
the exact ML decoder in this case, and we call it the ML
decoding metric with uncorrelated errors) is given by

N
N


xGUML = arg min
log n2 + u2
|xj |2
xX N

i=1

N

i=1

j=1

|(y Rx)i |2

 . (26)
N
2
2
2
n + u j=1 |xj |

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 12, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013

C. Robust Sphere Decoder

Using the decoding metric (25) allows us to formulate a
reduced complexity recursive search (tree search) algorithm to
find the vector x that minimizes the metric. We construct a tree
that represents the search process. The tree has N levels and
each node of the tree has |X | children nodes. The minimum
metric lies in one of the leaf nodes. The idea is to construct
a metric at each node, defined as the nodal metric function
(NMF), that satisfies the following two criteria:
(i) The NMF value of a node (say node A) must be a lower
bound for the metric of all leaf nodes with root node A.
(ii) The NMF at each of the leaf nodes is the exact value of
the metric (25).
A variable Cmin (x ) is used to keep track of the minimum
metric found so far and the associated vector x . The search
proceeds from the root node towards the leaf nodes; at each
node, the NMF is computed and if it exceeds Cmin (x ), then
the entire subtree belonging to the node is discarded (and will
not be searched) since it is guaranteed that the solution does
not lie in that subtree. Otherwise, the subtree belonging to
the node will be searched. At a leaf node, the Cmin (x ) is
updated according to Cmin (x ) = min (Cmin (x ), NMF). This
process continues until all the nodes have either been searched
or discarded.
1) Lower Bounds: By definition, the NMF is a lower bound
for the metric of all the leaf nodes below it. To this end,
our objective is to find a lower bound for each of the terms
in (25). To find a lower bound for the first term of (25),

it is
 required that we find a lower bound for i,i . Define
j1 N
N

Vi x1 |xj = x j to be the lower bound of i,i , given that


j1 N
N
N
xN
j takes the value of x
j . We can write Vi x1 |xj = x
j
as


N
N

=
Vi xj1
|x
=
x
j
1
j

T E
minimize x R
x + 2 (27)
(i1)N +1:iN,(i1)N +1:iN

subject to

N
xN
j ,
j =x

with variables x RN . In (27), we have a linear program

and the solution to it is also a solution to the set of linear
equations given by
A1:j1,1:j1 xj1
= b(i) ,
1
(i)

(28)

where we simplify the notation by defining A(i) 

(i)
RE(i1)N +1:iN,(i1)N +1:iN . In (28), b(i) = A1:j1,j:N x N
j . The
solution to (28) is

 

(i)
xj1
=
A
b(i) .
(29)
1
1:j1,1:j1
To find a lower bound for the second term of (25), it
 i,i . Define
is 
required that we find an upper bound for
j1 N
 i,i , given that
to be the upper bound of
Ui x1 |xj = x N
j
N
N
xj takes the value of x j . An upper bound is given by
j1 j1 
N
N 

 

  (i) 
N
N
(i)
2

=
Ui xj1
|x
=
x
A
+

x
x
Am,n 
m
n
j
j
m,n
1
m=j n=j
j1 
N 


 (i)

+ 2
Am,n x m  ,
m=j n=1

m=1 n=1

(30)

where = maxxX |x| is the largest absolute value of the

symbol in the data constellation.
2) Nodal Metric Function (NMF): The NMF of a node
at level j of the tree is a lower bound for

 the metric of
N
N

|x
=
x
all leaf nodes below it; the expression xj1
j
j
1
indicates the lower bound, given that xN
j takes the value
N
of x N
j (i.e the signal components xj has been detected as
N
x j). Combining (27)
 and (30), we can now define the NMF,
j1 N
N
x1 |xj = x j , at level j of the tree to be


N
xj1
|xN
j = x
j
1
=

N


log Vi

xj1
|xN
j
1

x N
j

i=1


+

N

i=j


2
(
y Rx)i 

.
N
Ui xj1
|xN
1
j = x
j
(31)

is the exact
In addition, at each of the leaf nodes, (|x = x)
decoding metric (25).
In the special case of i.i.d channel estimation errors, the
NMF at level j of the tree can be defined as


N
N

|x
=
x
xj1
j
j
1

N
N


=
log n2 + u2
|x m |2 + u2 2 (j 1)
i=1

N

i=j

m=j
2

|(y Rx)i |
,


N
n2 + u2 m=j |x m |2 + u2 2 (j 1)

(32)

where is defined as before, and = minxX |x| is the

smallest absolute value of the symbol in the data constellation.
3) Tree Search: We summarize our robust sphere decoder
in Algorithm 1 and provide an example of the search process,
together with a graphical illustration in the next subsection.
4) Example: Consider N = 2 transmit antennas, P = 2
receive antennas and 4-PAM modulation scheme with X =
T
{3, 1, 1, 3}. Let x = [1, 3] be the transmitted signal
2
vector and noise variance n = 1. Let the estimated channel
matrix and the error correlation matrix respectively be given
by


= 68.16 72.66
H
(33)
0.07
42.25
and

5.31 1.69 2.55 1.17

1.69 2.30
0.79
0.54

.
RE =
2.55
0.79
2.83 0.83
1.17 0.54 0.83 3.32

(34)

The search tree generated by applying the proposed robust

sphere decoder is illustrated in Figures 1 and 2. Cmin (x )
is initialized to
infinity when the decoding begins and
1
xN
|xN = x N is computed for each x N X . We make
1
the following computations:

1
|xN = 3 = 6.21,
xN

1N 1
(35)
x1 |xN = 1 = 204,

N 1
x1 |xN = 1 = 823,
1

xN
|xN = 3 = 910.
1

THIAN and GOLDSMITH: REDUCED-COMPLEXITY ROBUST MIMO DECODERS

3787

Algorithm 1 Robust sphere decoder (tree search) for MIMO

systems with correlated channel estimation errors
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:
15:
16:
17:
18:

19:
20:
21:
22:
23:
24:
25:
26:

Input: n2 , RE , R, N, P
Initialization: x 0, Cmin (x )
jN
for each node at level 1 do

1
Compute xN
|xN = x N
1
end for

1
Sort xN
|xN = x N in ascending order and put
1
them (and the associated j and x N ) into a stack
while
 stack is not empty do
N
N
j, x N
pop top element
, xj1
1 |xj = x
 j
j
j1 N
N
if x1 |xj = x j Cmin (x ) then
if j = 1 then
x x N
1

Cmin (x ) (|x = x)
else
for i in 1 to |X | do
j j1 

N
N
j
Compute xj1
1 |xj+1 = x
j+1 , xj = x
for each

 x j X
N
N
in ascending order and
Sort xj1
j
1 |xj = x
put them (and the associated j and x j ) into
the stack
end for
end if
end if
end while
Output: x , Cmin (x )

The four nodes are sorted in ascending order and put into a
stack, and the node with the smallest NMF is removed from
the stack for further computation/search. Hence, the nodes
with xN = 1, xN = 1 and xN = 3 remain in the stack
and the node with xN = 3 will be searched next. Further
computation gives us
(|xN = 3, xN 1 = 3) = 449,
(|xN = 3, xN 1 = 1, ) = 6.26,

(36)

(|xN = 3, xN 1 = 1) = 467,
(|xN = 3, xN 1 = 3.) = 694.
Similar to the previous step, the four nodes are sorted and
put into the same stack and the node with the smallest NMF
(the node with xN 1 = 1) will be searched next. Since the
level is now at j = 1 and that (|xN = 3, xN 1 = 1) <
Cmin (x ), we update Cmin (x ) and x accordingly to be
T
Cmin (x ) = 6.26 and x = [1, 3] .
In the following steps, each remaining node is removed
from the stack and investigated sequentially. Since all remaining nodes (in the stack) have NMF values which are greater
than Cmin (x ), they are discarded. The stack is now empty;
we have completed our search and the decoded signal vector
T
is declared to be x = [1, 3] . In this example, the number
of nodes searched is 8, which is less than 42 = 16. However,
more savings can be achieved if a higher order modulation

-3

] x1N 1 | x N 3 6.21

-1

] x1N 1 | x N 1 204

] x1N 1 | x N 1 823

] x1N 1 | x N 3 910

Stack

#
] x1N 1 | x N 3 6.21
] x1N 1 | x N 1 204
] x1N 1 | x N

1 823

] x1N 1 | x N

910

Fig. 1. Example: In step 1, the nodal metric function (NMF) value of the
four children nodes of the root node is evaluated. They are then sorted and
place into a stack in descending order; the node with the smallest NMF value
is placed at the bottom of the stack. At this stage, Cmin = +.
TABLE I
C OMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY OF THE k th STEP OF QR DECOMPOSITION
No. of real additions
(N k + 1)2 + (N k + 1)(N k) + 2

No. of real multiplications

2(N k + 1)2

scheme or more transmit/receive antennas are used.

D. Computational Complexity
Each time a node is visited, computations are performed
and some of resulting computations are stored in memory.
Here, we present an analysis of the approximate computational
complexity for our robust sphere decoder. The computational
complexity is proportional to the total number of real multiplications and additions of the algorithm, which is equals the total
number of floating point operations (flops). The computational
complexity of the pre-processing stage and the tree search
stage is shown below.
1) Pre-processing: Pre-processing at the decoder requires
To compute the QR
us to compute the QR decomposition of H.
decomposition, we use the Householder transformation [26].
Using the Householder transformation, the QR decomposition
of a P N matrix (where P N ) involves N 1 steps. The
following table gives the number of operations in the k th step
of the QR decomposition [26]
Summing the terms in Table I over the N 1 steps,
the computational complexity of the QR decomposition is
obtained as O(N 3 ).

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 12, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013

TABLE II


N
C OMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY OF EVALUATING Xj1
| XN
1
j = Xj
FOR I . I . D CHANNEL ESTIMATION ERRORS

-3

] x1N 1 | x N 3 6.21

-1

] x1N 1 | x N 1 204

Term


N
term of xj1
|xN
1
j =x
j


N
Numerator of 2nd term of xj1
|xN
j
1
j = x


N
Denominator of 2nd term of xj1
|xN
1
j =x
j
Total

No. of real adds

Term


1st term of xj1
|xN
= x N
1
j
j

N
Numerator of 2nd term of xj1
|xN
j
j = x
1


N
Denominator of 2nd term of xj1
|xN
j =x
j
1
Total

No. of real multiplies

1st

] x1N 1 | x N 1 823

] x1N 1 | x N 3 910

N j+5
2(N j + 1)
N j+5
4N 4j + 12
N j+4
N j+2
N j+5
2N 3j + 11

TABLE III
C OMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY OF EVALUATING (26)
-3

-1

] x | x N 3, x N 1 3 449

] x | x N 3, x N 1 1 467

] x | x N 3, x N 1 1 6.26

] x | x N 3, x N 1 3 694

Cmin = 6.26

Fig. 2. Example: In step 2, the children nodes of the node with the smallest
NMF value is searched and evaluated. Since the level is now at j = 1, the
values of the nodes are compared to Cmin and updated accordingly to be
6.26. Next, the remaining nodes in the stack are compared to Cmin . It is
found that their NMF values are greater than Cmin , so they are discarded
(their children nodes will not be evaluated). Since the stack is now empty,
the decoding is completed.

2) Tree Search: When a node at level j of the tree is

N
N
visited, (xj1
j ) is computed, and
1 |xj = x
 the main burden

N
N
of computing it lies with evaluating Vi xj1
1 |xj = x
j .


N
N

Since Vi xj1
|x
=
x
involves solving a system of linear
j
j
1

3
equations, the computational complexity is O
 (j 1) . The

N
N
computational complexity of evaluating Ui xj1
j
1 |xj = x

y Rx|2 is O N 2 . Therefore,the
is O (j 1)2 and that of |
N
N
computational complexity of evaluating xj1
is
j
1 |xj = x

O N (j 1)3 + O (N j + 1)(j 1)2 + O(N 2 ). (37)
Instead of solving (28) each time the search arrives at a
node, further savings can be achieved if we solve (28) once
and use the result at another node on the same level. This can
be explained as follows: (29) can be written as


xj1
1

N 

m=j

(i)

A1:j1,1:j1

(i)

A1:j1,m x m .

(38)

From (38), it is seen that at any level j of the tree, the pseudo(i)
inverse of the matrix A1:j1,1:j1 is computed once and used
several times.

Term
||
y Rx||2


N
2 + 2
2
n
u
i=1 |xi |


N
2 + 2
2
N log n
u
i=1 |xi |

No. of real adds

N 2 + 2N

Total

N 2 + 4N + 4

Term
||
y
Rx||2



2
2
2
n + u N
i=1 |xi |


N
2 + 2
2
N log n
u
i=1 |xi |

No. of real multiplies

N2 + N

Total

N 2 + 3N + 1

N +2
N +2

N
N +1

Special case of i.i.d channel estimation errors: In this case,

the NMF is given by (32) and we provide a more detailed
analysis of the computational analysis in Table II. Table II
shows the number of real additions
and multiplications
that is


j1 N
N

undertaken for each term of x1 |xj = xj when a node

at level j is visited.
From Table II, we see that the number of flops at each node
is on the order of O(N ). Thus, the computational complexity
in this special case is given by
number of nodes visited O(N ).

(39)

A detailed analysis of the computational complexity for

evaluating one candidate solution of (26) via the brute-force
search method is shown in Table III. We see that the number of
flops for computing each term of (16) is on the order of O(N 2 )
and a total number of |X |N possible solutions are evaluated.
Hence, the total flops required to carry out the brute-force
search is
|X |N O(N 2 ).

(40)

The computational complexity of the brute-force search is

severely limited by the number of searches required. Furthermore, (39) and (40) suggest that if the order of the number of
nodes visited by the robust ML sphere decoder is substantially
less than exponential, then considerable computational savings
over the brute-force method can be achieved.

THIAN and GOLDSMITH: REDUCED-COMPLEXITY ROBUST MIMO DECODERS

E. Further Improvements
We can further improve upon the computational complexity
(in terms of reducing the number of nodes visited and hence
the total number of real additions and multiplications) by
doing more pre-processing before decoding, or to use a
different search strategy from the one described above. Some
of the improvements that can be made are as follows:
1) Channel ordering: Order the columns of the estimated
according to some criterion, such
channel matrix, H,
as Euclidean norm or VBLAST ordering [18]. In the
Euclidean norm ordering, the columns of the estimated
channel matrix are sorted in the increasing order of their
adheres to
norm. Therefore, the resultant re-ordered H
the following criterion
1:P,2 ||2 ||H
1,P :N ||2 .
1:P,1 ||2 ||H
||H

(41)

The VBLAST ordering can be described compactly as a

recursive procedure [18], where the worst-case SINR at
each successive stage is maximized.
2) Search order: The search strategy described in Algorithm
1 is related to depth-first search. Other search strategies such as breadth-first search, best-first search or a
combination of them has the potential to reduce the
computational complexity of the decoding. The stack can
be sorted at each iteration to ensure that the node with
N
N
the minimum (xj1
1 |xj = x
j ) is visited first; insertion
sort can be used efficiently (with a complexity of O(|X |)
here.
3) Initial Cmin (x ): If Cmin (x ) is too large, an excessive
number of nodes will be visited before the optimal one
is found. If Cmin (x ) is too small, the decoder may fail
to find a solution. Probabilistic methods can be used to
compute a more efficient value for the initial Cmin (x )
(where efficient is in the sense of decreasing the computational complexity/total number of nodes visited).
IV. T HEORETICAL A NALYSIS AND R ESULTS
In this section, we provide a theoretical analysis of the error
rate performance for the decoding metrics presented in this
paper. We present upper bounds on error probability between
two transmitted signal vectors (e.g space-time codewords).
The upper bounds are useful for simple analysis; we show in
Section V, via numerical simulations, that the gap between the
upper bounds and actual error probability (obtained via MonteCarlo simulations) is small. Furthermore, it is also observed (in
Section V) that our upper bounds provide an accurate measure
of the diversity order of the system. More importantly, we can
use the expression for the error probability upper bound to
derive criterion on codewords such that the upper bound is
minimized. In doing so, we can design space-time codes to
improve the performance of a practical MIMO system (see
Tarokh et. als work [25] on design of space-time codes for
MIMO systems with perfect CSI).
For each of the different settings, we obtain an upper bound
expression for a given channel and error realization, and
then average it over their joint distribution. The performance
analysis is for coded systems; nevertheless, the extension to
uncoded systems is straightforward. We assume block fading,

3789

i.e the channel remains unchanged during the transmission of

a codeword. For the purpose of analysis, we make a slight
reformulation of the problem as follows.
The received signal for the real MIMO system in (2) can
be equivalently expressed as
y = Xh + n,
M

(42)
MP N

is the
where y R is the received signal, X R
transmitted codeword, h = vec (H) is the channel, and n
RM represents a vector of white Gaussian noise. The channel
is given by
estimate at the receiver, h,
= h + e,
h

(43)

where e RP N is a zero-mean Gaussian random vector with

covariance given by (6).
Let Z be a different codeword and assume that X and Z
are equiprobable. We consider testing the hypothesis J0 :
X is transmitted versus the alternative J1 : Z is transmitted.
Let the likelihood function of y under Ji be P (y|Ji ). An
upper bound on the error probability of deciding on J0 when
J1 is true is [21] [22] [23] [24]
PUB;J1 () =

1
exp [ (|J1 )],
2

0 1,

(44)

where
(|J1 ) = ln E [exp { ln P (y|J0 ) ln P (y|J1 )}|J1 ] .
(45)
An upper bound pairwise error probability for codewords
X and Z is then given by
1
[PUB;J1 () + PUB;J0 ()] .
(46)
2
The upper bound in (44) is always valid if (45) exists.
In addition, the optimal Chernoff bound is obtained by the
value of which minimizes (44). In most cases, finding the
optimum value of is difficult; a less complicated bound
can be obtained by setting = 12 . The resulting bound is
known as the Bhattacharyya bound [23]. An upper bound for
the different scenarios is computed using a key lemma [20],
stated below.
PUB () =

Lemma 1. Suppose R is an L L symmetric matrix, S is

an L L symmetric positive-definite matrix; r, s are L 1
constant vectors, and u, v are scalar constants. Then,
!


T
x Rx + rT x + u exp xT Sx + sT x + v dx
RL


1 L/2
1 T 1
1/2
=
[det S]
exp s S s v
2
4


1

1
tr RS
sT S1 r + sT S1 RS1 s + 2u .
(47)
2
Proof: The proof is detailed in Theorem 15.12.1 in [20].
A. Imperfect Channel Estimates with Known Error Covariance Matrix
We first consider the scenario where the receiver has an
imperfect channel estimate and perfect knowledge of the error
covariance matrix. The channel estimation errors are assumed

3790

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 12, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013

to be zero-mean multivariate Gaussian. This corresponds to

the decoding metric in (16).
In this case, the received vector y under J0 is a multivariate
and covariance X , and the
Gaussian vector with mean Xh
received vector under J1 is a multivariate Gaussian vector with
and covariance Z . Then, (45) becomes
mean Zh
!
1
(|J1 ) = ln
M/2 (det )/2 (det )(1)/2
M
(2)
X
Z
R



T

1

y Xh
y Xh
exp
X
2


T
1 
dy.
1 y Zh

y Zh
Z
2
(48)
To

simplify (53), we apply Lemma 1 with

R
x =
y Zh,
0, r
=
0, S
=
 =
1
1
1
1

,
s
=

+
(1

(Z

X)
h,
Z
2
1X
X
u = (2)M/2 (det X )/2 (det Z )(1)/2
, and
T (Z X)T 1 (Z X) h
to obtain
v = 2 h
X
(|J1 )


1
1


= ln
1
2
det 1
det [X ] det [Z ]1
X + (1 ) Z

 1
1 1
1 T
(Z X)T 2 1
X
X + (1 ) 1
+ h
X
Z
2

1

X (Z X) h
(49a)

1
1


= ln
1
2
det 1
+
(1

det [X ] det [Z ]1
X
Z

det [Z ] det [X ]1
1 T

(Z X)T
h
2
det [Z ] det [X ]1

1
1
1

(Z X) h
(49b)
X
Z

1


(1 ) T
1
det [Z ] det [X ]1

= ln
h (Z X)T
2
det [Z + (1 ) X ]
2

{Z + (1 ) X }1 (Z X) h.
(49c)

where the step from (49a) to (49b) requires the use of the
matrix inversion lemma in [20] (equation (2.22) on page 424),
given by
 1
1 1
X + (1 ) 1
X 1
2 1
X
Z
X

"1
1
1
X
Z
=
.
(50)

1
Defining


det [Z ] det [X ]1
det [Z + (1 ) X ]

#1/2
,

(51)

(1 )
T
(Z X)
2
1
{Z + (1 ) X } (Z X) ,

(52)

 (|J1 ) =
and
T (|J1 ) =

we obtain
PUB;J1 () =



 (|J1 )
T T (|J1 ) h
.
exp h
2

Defining PCB;J1 similarly, we have

PUB;J0 () =



 (|J0 )
T T (|J0 ) h
,
exp h
2

(54)

where


det [X ] det [Z ]
det [X + (1 ) Z ]

#1/2
.

(55)

(1 )
(X Z)T
2
{X + (1 ) Z }1 (X Z) ,

(56)

 (|J0 ) =

and
T (|J0 ) =

The average pairwise error probability is obtained by aver Then,

aging (53) and (54) over the distribution of h.



 (|J0 )
T T (|J0 ) h
T
PUB () = Eh
exp h
2


 (|J1 )
T T (|J1 ) h
T
+
exp h
2
1
 (|J0 )
=
1/2
2
{det [IP N + 2T (|J0 ) ]}
h

1
 (|J1 )
+
, (57)
1/2
2
{det [IP N + 2T (|J1 ) h ]}
There is no simple
where h is the covariance matrix of h.
way to obtain the optimal value of . Instead, we obtain the
Bhattacharyya bound by setting = 12 .

B. Imperfect Channel Estimates with Mismatched Error Covariance Matrix

Next, we consider the scenario where the receiver has an
imperfect channel estimate and utilizes a mismatched error
covariance matrix for decoding. The channel estimation errors
are assumed to be zero-mean multivariate Gaussian. This
corresponds to the decoding metric in (25). As described
earlier, using a mismatched error covariance matrix can occur
in various situations, such as (i) having imperfect knowledge
of the error covariance matrix; or (ii) using a mismatched error
covariance matrix intentionally so that decoding can be done
with lower complexity (as demonstrated by Algorithm 1).
Denoting P (y|Ji ) as the assumed likelihood function (using
the mismatched error covariance matrix) under hypothesis Ji ,
the decision rule for choosing between X and Z becomes
X

(53)


P (y|J0 ) >
< P (y|J1 ) .
z

(58)

THIAN and GOLDSMITH: REDUCED-COMPLEXITY ROBUST MIMO DECODERS

Then, (45) becomes

where

(|J1 )

$
% 
= ln E exp ln P (y|J0 ) ln P (y|J1 ) |J1
/2

!
Z
det 2
= ln
/2

1/2
RM
X
det 2
det [2Z ]



T

 1 y Xh

y Xh
exp
X
2




T

 1 y Zh

+
y Zh
Z
2


T
1
1

y Zh Z y Zh dy,

 (|J0 )
 

1/2
X

det

 

=
,
det
 Z det [X ]
 1
 1 + 1 det
Z
X
X
(65)
and

(59)

X
where, due to the mismatched error covariance matrix,
 Z are the covariance matrices of y under hypotheand
sis J0 and J1 respectively. In (59), Z is the covariance
matrix of y with the perfect error covariance matrix, under
hypothesis J1 . Applying Lemma (1) to (59), with x 
=
1
1
1
1



y Zh, R = 0, r = 0, S = 2 X Z + Z ,
 1 (Z X) h,
u =
s =
X
v=

T
2h

(Z X)

 1 (Z

 Z]
det[2
 X]
det[2

/2

/2

det[2Z ]1/2

, and

to obtain
X) h

Defining
 (|J1 )
 
1/2

Z

det

 

=
det
 X det [Z ]
 1
 1 + 1 det
X
Z
Z
(61)
and
F (|J1 )


1
1
 1
 1
 1
 1 + 1

= (Z X)T 2
X
X
Z
Z
X
2
%
 1 (Z X) ,
(62)

we obtain an upper bound as



 (|J1 )
T F (|J1 ) h
.
exp h
2

(63)

The expression for PUB;J0 () can be obtained similarly as

PUB;J0 () =



 (|J0 )
T F (|J0 ) h
,
exp h
2

F (|J0 )


1
1
T
 1
 1
 1
 1 + 1

= (X Z)
2
Z
Z
X
X
Z
2
%
 1 (X Z) .

(66)
Z

we get
Averaging (63) and (64) over the distribution of h,



 (|J1 )
1
T F (|J1 ) h
T
PUB () = Eh
exp h
2
2


 (|J0 )
T
T

+
exp h F (|J0 ) h
2
1
 (|J1 )
=
1/2
4
{det [IP N + 2F (|J1 ) ]}
h

1
 (|J0 )
+
. (67)
1/2
4
{det [IP N + 2F (|J0 ) h ]}

(|J1 )
 

Z

det

1

 

= ln
2 det
 X det [Z ]
 1
 1 + 1 det
X
Z
Z


1
1 T
 1
 1
 1
 1 + 1

(Z X)T 2
+ h
X
X
Z
Z
X
2
%
 1 (Z X) h.

(60)

PUB;J1 () =

3791

(64)

Similar to the previous

where h is the covariance matrix of h.
scenario, we can obtain the Bhattacharyya bound by setting
= 12 .
V. N UMERICAL R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSIONS
In this section, we present some simulation results for
different system parameters.
 For all the simulations, we fixed


n2 , RE and vary E H2i,j to obtain the numerical results for

the different SINR values, where the definition of SINR is
given by (7) and (8). Our numerical simulations consider
both correlated channel estimation errors and i.i.d channel
estimation errors.
A. Performance of the Proposed Decoding Metrics
1) Correlated Channel Estimation Errors: In the first part
of this set of numerical simulations, we compare the symbol
error rate (SER) versus SINR performance for the MIMO
system with correlated channel estimation errors. We present
the results for five decoding metrics: (i) the conventional ML
= H, (ii) the
metric (3) where it is wrongly assumed that H
robust near-ML decoding metric (25), (iii) the ML decoding
metric with i.i.d errors (26), (iv) the exact ML metric (16) and
(v) the worst-case errors decoding metric proposed in [14].
The authors in [14] considered i.i.d channel estimation errors
but rather than incorporate the full characteristics of the error
matrix E, they upper bound the values of some of the terms.
Although the comparison with worst-case errors decoding [14]
is more appropriate in the next set of numerical simulations
(i.i.d channel estimation errors), we have included it here for
completeness sake.
We consider a 4 4 real MIMO system with 16-QAM
modulation. Figure 3 illustrates the SER versus the SINR

3792

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 12, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013

10

10

10

10

SER

SER

10
2

10

10
3

10

10

ML with exact metric [Equation (16)]

Generalized robust ML decoding metric [Equation (25)]
ML assuming uncorrelated errors with same variance
ML assuming perfect CSI
Worst case errors decoding
5

10

15

20

10

25

10

30

ML assuming perfect CSI

Robust sphere decoder which accounts for CSI errors [Eqn. (26)]
Worst case errors decoding

10

15

performance for the different schemes. The exact ML decoding metric gives the best SER performance. It is observed
specifically that the robust near-ML decoding metric (25)
has only a very small performance loss; at a SER of 103 ,
the coding loss is only about 0.5 dB. In addition, the ML
decoding metric which assumed i.i.d errors (26) has a coding
loss of 3 dB. In contrast, using the ML metric which assumes
perfect CSI and the worst-case errors decoder proposed in [14]
results in significantly worse performance than our proposed
decoding metric.
2) i.i.d Channel Estimation Errors: In the second part
of this set of numerical simulations, we study a MIMO
system with i.i.d channel estimation errors and compare the
performance of using the proposed ML decoding metric with
i.i.d errors (26) with the conventional ML metric (3) which
= H), as well as the worst-case
assumes perfect CSI (i.e H
errors decoding metric [14].
Figure 4 illustrates the SER versus the SINR performance
for the three different metrics. Our proposed robust ML decoding metric achieves the best SER performance. Interestingly,
in this scenario, the conventional ML metric which assumes
= H) performs much better than worst-case
perfect CSI (H
errors decoding [14]. The following coding gains are observed:
At a SER of 103 , the proposed ML decoding metric (26)
achieves a 4.5 dB gain over the conventional ML decoder, and
more than 8 dB of gain over the worst-case errors decoding
of [14].
B. Performance of the Robust Sphere Decoder
In the second set of numerical simulations, we present SER
performance and average computational complexity results for
the robust sphere decoder.
1) Correlated Channel Estimation Errors: We first consider a 4 4 real MIMO system with correlated channel estimation errors, and with 64-QAM and 256-QAM modulation.
Figure 5 illustrates the SER versus SINR performance with
the two different metrics; we verify via numerical simulation
that the robust sphere decoder does in fact find the solution to
the robust near-ML decoding metric (obtained via exhaustive

25

30

Fig. 4. 44 MIMO (16-QAM) with i.i.d channel estimation errors: Average

SER vs SINR for the different decoding schemes
0

10

256QAM
1

10

SER

Fig. 3. 4 4 MIMO (16-QAM) with correlated channel estimation errors:

Average SER vs SINR for the different decoding schemes

20

Average SINR

Average SINR

64QAM

10

10

10

ML with exact metric [Equation (16)]

Generalized robust ML decoding metric [Equation (25)]
Generalized robust ML decoder
5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Average SINR

Fig. 5. 4 4 MIMO with correlated channel estimation errors: Average SER

vs SINR for the brute force search and robust sphere decoder for different
constellation sizes

search). Figure 6 shows the average number of nodes visited

at each level (level 1-4) of the tree, and the total number of
nodes visited is denoted at the top of each set of bars. It is
observed that the most visitations occur at level 1, and that on
average, there are significantly fewer nodes visited compared
to exhaustive search. The following observations are made at
an SINR of 20 dB: For 64-QAM, the robust sphere decoder
visited 126 nodes compared to 4096 nodes using exhaustive
search and for 256-QAM, the robust sphere decoder visited
2360 nodes compared to 65536 nodes using exhaustive search.
The savings in computational complexity can be quantified
more accurately by studying the average total number of real
multiplications and additions of the methods. To understand
the extent of savings in computational complexity that can be
achieved in larger MIMO systems, we also provide results
for a 6 6 MIMO system. We define the computational
savings ratio as the factor of decrease of total real elementary
operations (multiplications and additions) of the robust sphere
decoder over the brute-force exhaustive search. Figure 7
illustrates the computational savings ratio. For 4 4 MIMO

64QAM
800

10

1001

600

720

400

10

477
301

200

192

126

80

40

54

32

28

10

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Average SINR
256QAM

x 10

10

28274

18591
4

10

11828

7202

4088

2360 1260

761

414

255

195
5

10

15

20

25

30

35

10

40

Average SINR

1200

1000

4x4 MIMO, 16QAM, Bruteforce method

4x4 MIMO, 16QAM, Proposed robust sphere decoder
4x4 MIMO, 64QAM, Bruteforce method
4x4 MIMO, 64QAM, Proposed robust sphere decoder
4x4 MIMO, 256QAM, Bruteforce method
4x4 MIMO, 256QAM, Proposed robust sphere decoder
5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Average SINR

Fig. 6. 4 4 MIMO system with correlated channel estimation errors:

Average number of nodes visited at each level for the proposed robust sphere
decoder

Computational savings ratio

3793

SER

Average number of nodes visited Average number of nodes visited

THIAN and GOLDSMITH: REDUCED-COMPLEXITY ROBUST MIMO DECODERS

Fig. 8. 4 4 MIMO system with i.i.d channel estimation errors: Average

symbol error rate (SER) vs signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) for
the brute-force search and the robust sphere decoder

On average, the robust sphere decoder visited approximately

50 nodes compared to 256 nodes as required by the bruteforce method for the 16-QAM scheme, and approximately
400 nodes compared to 4096 nodes for the 64-QAM scheme,
and approximately 4500 nodes compared to 65536 nodes for
the 256-QAM scheme. From (39) and (40), we see that computational complexity is directly proportional to the number
of nodes visited. Thus, the robust sphere decoder achieves
a much lower computational complexity (for the same SER
performance) than the brute-force search method.

4 4 MIMO with 64QAM

4 4 MIMO with 256QAM
6 6 MIMO with 64QAM

800

600

400

200

C. Coded System and Theoretical Results

0
0

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Average SINR

Fig. 7.
MIMO system with correlated channel estimation errors: Computational savings ratio the proposed robust sphere decoder achieves over
exhaustive search

with 64-QAM, the computational savings ratio increases from

2 to 52 when SINR increases from 0 to 40 dB, and for
4 4 MIMO with 256-QAM, the computational savings ratio
increases from 2.9 to 228 when SINR increases from 0 to 40
dB. For 66 MIMO with 64-QAM, the computational savings
ratio increases from 23 to 1148 when SINR increases from 0 to
40 dB. In summary, the computational savings ratio increases
with increasing dimensions; more transmit/receive antennas
or higher modulation size leads to increase in computational
savings ratio.
2) i.i.d Channel Estimation Errors: We consider a real 44
MIMO system with i.i.d channel estimation errors, and the
modulation schemes used are 16-QAM, 64-QAM and 256QAM. Figure 8 illustrates the SER versus SINR performance
with the different constellation sizes. We verify via numerical
simulation that the robust sphere decoder does achieve the ML
solution (17) found by brute-force search. Figure 9 shows the
average number of nodes visited by the robust sphere decoder.
The following observations are made at an SINR of 20 dB:

In the following example, we provide numerical results

based on space-time codes obtained from a simple short code
(the (8,4,4) extended binary Hamming code), and for a 8 8
real MIMO system. The channel estimation errors are also
assumed to be correlated. Results based on Monte Carlo
simulations and theoretical results (equation (57) and (67))
are compared and illustrated in Figure 10.
It is observed that theoretical upper bounds derived in this
paper are good approximations to the Monte Carlo simulations. The upper bounds on the pairwise codeword error
probability follow the shape of the simulations. In particular,
for = 0.3 (equation (57) and (67)) and at codeword error
rate (CWER) of 104 , the gap between the upper bounds
and the simulations is only about 2 dB. The analytical upper
bounds are relatively good indicators of the performance of
the decoding schemes; they will be useful for the design of
space-time codes in practical MIMO systems where CSI at
the receiver is imperfect.
VI. C ONCLUSIONS
We considered receiver design of MIMO systems with
Gaussian channel estimation errors. We proposed a sphere
decoder that is robust to CSI errors and is near optimal
in the sense of minimizing the probability of symbol error.
We demonstrated, via simulations, that our proposed robust
sphere decoder incurs very small performance loss (when

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 12, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013

4x4 MIMO, 16QAM

150
125
100
75
50
25
0
0

10

15

20
25
SINR
4x4 MIMO, 64QAM

30

35

40

10

15

20
25
SINR
4x4 MIMO, 256QAM

30

35

40

10

15

30

35

40

2000
1500
1000
500
0
0

Ave. no. of nodes visited

Ave. no. of nodes visited

Ave. no. of nodes visited

3794

x 10
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0

20
SINR

25

Fig. 9. 4 4 MIMO system with i.i.d channel estimation errors: Average

number of nodes visited for the system with various parameters
1

10

10

CWER

10

10

10

10

ML with exact metric [Equation (12)]

Robust nearML decoding metric [Equation (21)]
= 0.3 Upper bound for ML with exact metric
= 0.3 Upper bound for robust nearML decoding metric
Bhattacharyya bound for ML with exact metric ( = 0.5)
Bhattacharyya bound for robust nearML decoding metric ( = 0.5)
5

10

15

20

25

Average SINR

Fig. 10. (8,4,4) Hamming code: Average pairwise codeword error probability
(CWER) vs signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) for the different
decoding schemes for 8x8 MIMO with correlated channel estimation errors

compared to the exact ML solution) with significantly lower

computational complexity. Thus, our proposed robust sphere
decoder is implementable in practical MIMO systems. We also
derived theoretical upper bounds on the pairwise codeword
error rate (and pairwise symbol error rate) performance of the
robust sphere decoder. We showed that the gap between the
derived upper bounds and simulations is small. The results to
date assume that the statistics of the CSI errors are known
to us. Future research directions will study joint channel
estimation (estimating the channel as well as the second-order
statistics) and data detection.
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Boon Sim Thian received the Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) degree from the National University
of Singapore in 2005, Master of Science degrees in
Electrical Engineering (2008) and Statistics (2011),
and Ph.D. degree (2011) from Stanford University.
He is currently with the Institute for Infocomm
Research, Singapore, where he is working in areas
related to statistical signal processing and detection
for MIMO communications.

THIAN and GOLDSMITH: REDUCED-COMPLEXITY ROBUST MIMO DECODERS

Andrea Goldsmith is the Stephen Harris professor

in the School of Engineering and a professor of
Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. She
was previously on the faculty of Electrical Engineering at Caltech. She co-founded and serves as
CTO of Accelera, Inc., which develops softwaredefined wireless network technology, and previously
co-founded and served as CTO of Quantenna Communications Inc., which develops high-performance
WiFi chipsets. She has previously held industry
positions at Maxim Technologies, Memorylink Corporation, and AT&T Bell Laboratories. Dr. Goldsmith is a Fellow of the
IEEE and of Stanford, and she has received several awards for her work,
including the IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society
joint paper award, the IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper
Award, the National Academy of Engineering Gilbreth Lecture Award, the
IEEE Wireless Communications Technical Committee Recognition Award,
the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business
Journals Women of Influence Award. She is author of the book Wireless
Communications and co-author of the books MIMO Wireless Communications

3795

and Principles of Cognitive Radio, all published by Cambridge University

Press. She received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering
from U.C. Berkeley.
Dr. Goldsmith is currently on the Steering Committee for the IEEE T RANS ACTIONS ON W IRELESS C OMMUNICATIONS , and has previously served as
editor for the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON I NFORMATION T HEORY, the Journal
on Foundations and Trends in Communications and Information Theory and in
Networks, the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON C OMMUNICATIONS , and the IEEE
Wireless Communications Magazine. Dr. Goldsmith participates actively in
committees and conference organization for the IEEE Information Theory
and Communications Societies and has served on the Board of Governors for
both societies. She has been a Distinguished Lecturer for both societies, served
as the President of the IEEE Information Theory Society in 2009, founded
and chaired the student committee of the IEEE Information Theory society,
and currently chairs the Emerging Technology Committee and is a member
of the Strategic Planning Committee in the IEEE Communications Society.
At Stanford she received the inaugural University Postdoc Mentoring Award,
served as Chair of its Faculty Senate, and currently serves on its Faculty
Senate and on its Budget Group.