  In Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems, Sphere Decoding (SD) can
achieve performance equivalent to full search Maximum Likelihood (ML) decoding,
with reduced complexity. Several researchers reported techniques that reduce
the complexity of SD further. In this paper, a new technique is introduced
which decreases the computational complexity of SD substantially, without
sacrificing performance. The reduction is accomplished by deconstructing the
decoding metric to decrease the number of computations and exploiting the
structure of a lattice representation. Furthermore, an application of SD,
employing a proposed smart implementation with very low computational
complexity is introduced. This application calculates the soft bit metrics of a
bit-interleaved convolutional-coded MIMO system in an efficient manner. Based
on the reduced complexity SD, the proposed smart implementation employs the
initial radius acquired by Zero-Forcing Decision Feedback Equalization (ZF-DFE)
which ensures no empty spheres. Other than that, a technique of a particular
data structure is also incorporated to efficiently reduce the number of
executions carried out by SD. Simulation results show that these approaches
achieve substantial gains in terms of the computational complexity for both
uncoded and coded MIMO systems.
