Space-time codes and concatenated channel codes for wireless communications

• Published in: Proceedings of the IEEE Vol. 90; no. 2; pp. 187 - 219
• Main Authors: Liew, T.H., Hanzo, L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.02.2002; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Block codes; Blocking; Carbon capture and storage; Channel coding; Channels; Codecs; Codes; Coding; Coding, codes; Complexity; Concatenated codes; Convolutional codes; Exact sciences and technology; Information, signal and communications theory; Modulation; Multilevel; Signal and communications theory; Space time codes; Systems, networks and services of telecommunications; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Throughput; Transceivers; Transmission and modulation (techniques and equipments); Trellis codes; Turbo codes; Fading channels; Performance evaluation; Block code; Convolutional code; Bit error rate; Trellis code; Space time; Turbo code; Channel coding; Digital transmission; Concatenation; BCH code; Comparative study
• ISSN: 0018-9219; 1558-2256
• DOI: 10.1109/5.989869

Following a brief historical perspective on channel coding, an introduction to space-time block codes is given. The various space-time codes considered are then concatenated with a range of channel codecs, such as convolutional and block-based turbo codes as well as conventional and turbo trellis codes. The associated estimated complexity issues and memory requirements are also considered. These discussions are followed by a performance study of various space-time and channel-coded transceivers. Our aim is first to identify a space-time code/channel code combination constituting a good engineering tradeoff in terms of its effective throughput, bit-error-rate performance, and estimated complexity. Specifically, the issue of bit-to-symbol mapping is addressed in the context of convolutional codes (CCs) and convolutional coding as well as Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem coding-based turbo codes in conjunction with an attractive unity-rate space-time code and multilevel modulation is detailed. It is concluded that over the nondispersive or narrow-band fading channels, the best performance versus complexity tradeoff is constituted by Alamouti's twin-antenna block space-time code concatenated with turbo convolutional codes. Further comparisons with space-time trellis codes result in similar conclusions.