Optimal Detector for Channels with Non-Gaussian Interference

The detection problem in the Gaussian interference channel is addressed, when transmitters employ non-Gaussian schemes designed for the single-user Gaussian channel. A structure consisting of a separate symbol-by-symbol detector and a hard decoder is considered. Given this structure, an optimal detector is presented that is compared to an interferenceunaware conventional detector, an interference-aware successive interference cancellation (SIC) detector, and a minimum-distance detector. It is demonstrated analytically and by simulation that the optimal detector outperforms both the conventional and the SIC detector, and that it attains decreasing symbol error rates even in the presence of strong interference. Moreover, the minimum-distance detector performs almost as well as the optimal detector in most scenarios and is significantly less complex.