Abstract-This paper addresses the design of optimal and nearoptimal detectors for a practical interference channel scenario where the transmitters employ discrete modulation schemes. The conventional detectors, which either ignore the interference or successively detect then cancel the interference, typically assume that the desired signal and/or the interference are Gaussian. This paper proposes detectors that explicitly take into account the modulation formats of both the desired signal and the interference. The optimal maximum-likelihood (ML) detector that minimizes the probability of detection error for a given set of modulation schemes is derived first. A joint minimumdistance detector (MD) is then presented as a low-complexity approximation of the optimal ML detector. It is demonstrated by analysis and by simulation that the proposed detectors can significantly outperform their conventional counterparts. In particular, while the interference-ignorant and the successive interference cancellation detectors are both prone to error floors, the proposed optimal ML and joint MD detectors are not.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.