In this paper, various ultra-wideband (UWB) spatial multiplxing (SM) multiple input multiple output (MIMO) receivers based on a prerake diversity combining scheme are discussed and their performance is analyzed. Several UWB MIMO detection approaches such as zero forcing (ZF), minimum mean square error (MMSE), ordered successive interference cancellation (OSIC), sorted QR decomposition (SQRD), and maximum likelihood (ML) are considered in order to cope with inter-channel interference. The UWB SM systems based on transmitter-side multipath preprocessing and receiver-side MIMO detection can either boost the transmission data rate or offer significant diversity gain and improved BER performance. The error performance and complexity of linear and nonlinear detection algorithms are comparatively studied on a lognormal multipath fading channel.