Blind Detection of Synchronous CDMA in Non-Gaussian Channels

Most blind source separation algorithms assume the channel noise to be Gaussian. This paper considers the problem of noncooperative blind detection of synchronous direct-sequence code-division multiple-access communications (no knowledge of the spreading sequences or training data) in non-Gaussian channels. Three iterative algorithms with different performance and complexity tradeoffs are proposed. Simulation results show that they significantly outperform Gaussian-optimal blind source separation algorithms in non-Gaussian channels. The Cramér-Rao lower bound for this problem is computed, and the performance of the proposed algorithms is shown to approach this bound for moderate signal-to-noise ratios.