This paper presents an iterative detector that, by thresholding the output of the matched filter, gives maximum-likelihood sequence detector (MLSD) decisions on binary, antipodally modulated symbols that have been corrupted by intersymbol interference and additive Gaussian noise. The detector will make decisions on some, but often not all, of the symbols in a transmitted sequence, and those decisions will be the same decisions as the MLSD would have made. The number of symbols that are detected is stochastic, varying from sequence to sequence. The basis of the detector is a bound on a crossterm of the quadratic form in the log-likelihood function for the transmitted sequence. The detector is simple in structure, consisting of a matched filter and two variable threshold values for each symbol.

Combined linear-Viterbi equalizer (CLVE) is a term often used for a class of digital receivers reducing the complexity of the Viterbi detector by assuming an approximate channel model together with linear pre-equalization of the received data. The authors reconsider a weighted least squares design technique for CLVEs by introducing a minimax criterion for suppressing the strongest component of the residual intersymbol interference. Odling (1993) studied the performance of some proposed CLVE design methods and evaluated them by simulated bit error rates. The present authors investigate the performance of the minimax design and of the CLVE designs found in literature for two GSM test channels. They also present a comparison of the CLVE designs based on a common quadratic optimization criterion for the selection of the channel prefilter and the desired impulse response.>