1. A multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, comprising: a base station comprising a plurality of front-end processors configured to process a plurality of signals received from a plurality of terminals to provide a plurality of symbol streams, at least one receive processor coupled to the front-end processors and configured to process the symbol streams in accordance with a successive cancellation receiver processing scheme to provide a plurality of decoded data streams, and to further derive channel state information (CSI) indicative of channel estimates for the plurality of terminals, a scheduler configured to receive the CSI, select a set of one or more terminals for data transmission on an uplink, assign a particular order of processing for the one or more selected terminals, and provide a schedule for the one or more selected terminals and their transmission parameters, and a transmit data processor operatively coupled to the receive processor and configured to process the schedule for transmission to the one or more selected terminals; and one or more terminals, each terminal comprising at least one demodulator configured to receive and process one or more signals from the base station to recover the transmitted schedule, and a transmit data processor configured to adaptively process data for transmission to the base station based on the transmission parameters for the terminal included in the recovered schedule.