Tree detection techniques are often used to reduce the complexity of a posteriori probability (APP) detection in high dimensional multi-antenna wireless communication systems. In this paper, we introduce an efficient soft-input soft-output tree detection algorithm that employs a new type of look-ahead path metric in the computation of its branch pruning (or sorting). While conventional path metrics depend only on symbols on a visited path, the new path metric accounts for unvisited parts of the tree in advance through an unconstrained linear estimator and adds a bias term that reflects the contribution of as-yet undecided symbols. By applying the linear estimate-based look-ahead path metric to an M-algorithm that selects the best M paths for each level of the tree we develop a new soft-input soft-output tree detector, called an improved soft-input soft-output M-algorithm (ISS-MA). Based on an analysis of the probability of correct path loss, we show that the improved path metric offers substantial performance gain over the conventional path metric. We also demonstrate through simulations that the ISS-MA provides a better performance-complexity trade-off than existing soft-input soft-output detection algorithms.
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