To increase the number of users supported by a basestation, current technologiesrnuse space division multiple access (SDMA) as one of spectral efficient multiplexingrnmethod. Multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) is one of the specialrncases of SDMA which uses different channel estimation (CE) and data detection (DD)rnmethods at the receiver.rnIn this thesis uplink cellular communication system with four simultaneous users,rneach occupied with a single transmitter antenna and two receiver antennas at thernbasestation is designed. Transmitted signals from different users are detected at thernbasestation receiver using their unique user specific spatial signature constituted byrntheir frequency domain channel transfer functions (FD-CHTFs).rnAccurate channel state information (CSI) is required at the receiver for coherentrndemodulation and interference cancelation. Due to large number of independentrntransmitter to receiver links CE is more challenging for MU-MIMO. Genetic algorithmrn(GA) is used as an effective solution to the MU-MIMO joint CE and DD problem in thernabove mentioned overloaded scenario.rnGA-based channel estimator and GA-based data detector are designedrnindependently using selection, crossover, mutation, and replacement operators.rnOptimum parameter values are selected using observation of change in fitness valuesrnwith change in parameter values. Performance comparisons between different CE andrnDD methods are made by using bit error rate (BER) and mean square error (MSE) valuesrnat specific signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) points.rnGA-based joint channel estimation and data detection (JCEDD) is designed byrncombining GA-based CE and GA-based DD and performance of the receiver is comparedrnwith other JCEDD methods. Reliability of the overloaded receiver is further increased byrnthe use of low-density parity-check (LDPC) channel encoder.rnKey words: MU-MIMO, Channel estimation, Multi-user detection, Genetic algorithm.