An iterative multistage （IM） adaptive Rake receiver for CDMA wireless communication systems was proposed. In comparison to other algorithms

such as LMMSE algorithm

the IM system has the similar complexity

but it can provide a better performance. Moreover

IM can avoid some problems of LMMSE algorithm

such as slow convergence

uncertainty of step size

and so on. The constraint conditions different from the AV system was adopted and a simplified orthogonal multistage structure was presented to achieve the system optimization which was carried out independently at each stage. The system parameters for each stage can be obtained through a simple iterative procedure

no complicated computation is required. The proposed system gives a reduced computational complexity compared to an AV system with similar performance. The quantitative analysis on system complexity is provided.