A multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (Multiple Input Multiple Output, MIMO for short) technology can suppress channel fading, so that a capacity, a coverage range, and spectrum utilization of a channel can be improved greatly.
A MIMO system improves the spectrum utilization by using spatial multiplexing. For example, at a transmit end, for a high-speed data stream, the high-speed data stream is made into several data substreams according to series/parallel change of a quantity of transmit antennas, then the data substreams are encoded separately, and the data substreams are transmitted by using enhanced control channel elements. One data substream corresponds to at least one enhanced control channel element, which is used to transmit the data substreams to form multi-layer transmission in space, where a quadrature modulation manner is used between layers to avoid co-channel interference, and then the data substreams are transmitted by using a transmit antenna. At a receive end, blind detection is performed based on a pilot port.
However, in the prior art, data streams of various layers in multi-layer transmission use a same pilot port, channel estimation cannot be correctly performed when data of multiple layers corresponds to a same port, causing that user equipment cannot correctly perform blind detection on downlink control information.