This paper proposes a new detection algorithm for MIMO communication systems
employing high order QAM constellations. The factor graph that corresponds to
this problem is very loopy; in fact, it is a complete graph. Hence, a
straightforward application of the Belief Propagation (BP) algorithm yields
very poor results. Our algorithm is based on an optimal tree approximation of
the Gaussian density of the unconstrained linear system. The finite-set
constraint is then applied to obtain a loop-free discrete distribution. It is
shown that even though the approximation is not directly applied to the exact
discrete distribution, applying the BP algorithm to the loop-free factor graph
outperforms current methods in terms of both performance and complexity. The
improved performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated on the problem
of MIMO detection
