Advances in Multiuser Detection

PREFACE

The proliferation of telecommunications systems and services over the past couple of decades has been accompanied by numerous advances in physical layer communications and associated signal processing techniques. Many of these services have in fact been enabled by the increase in spectral efficiency provided by improved modulation, coding, and reception capability. Furthermore, the evolution of communications networks continues to stimulate efforts to push the performance and reliability of these networks to their fundamental limits.

For the most part, many of the recent advances in signal processing methods for communications have been motivated by the evolution of mobile cellular systems, i.e., from first-generation analog systems, introduced in the 1980s, to next (fourth)-generation systems currently being designed. Additional motivation has been provided by other wireless systems and standards, such as wireless local and metropolitan area networks, and also the desire to provide broadband services over existing copper subscriber lines in the telephone network. Although wired channels, such as subscriber lines, do not experience the time variations in received signal strength associated with mobile cellular channels, other challenges remain, such as overcoming frequency-selectivity and efficient spectrum sharing among multiple users with different channel characteristics.

This book reviews recent advances in multiuser detection, which generally refers to methods for ...