Space Time Block Coding and MIMO Channels:Performance Results

Abstract

We analyse the Space-time Block coding for wireless communication and present an overview of applying MIMO concept and shows how it improves the SNR without decreasing data rates. It provides a new paradigm for transmission over Raleigh fading channel using multiple transmit antennas. Data is encoded using a space time block code and the encoded data is split into n streams which are simultaneously transmitted using n transmit antennas. Maximum likelihood decoding is achieved in a simple way through decoupling of the signals transmitted from different antennas rather than joint detection. This uses the orthogonal structure of the space time block code and gives a maximum likelihood decoding algorithm which is based only on linear processing at the receiver. We review the encoding and decoding algorithms for various codes and provide simulation results demonstrating their performance. It is shown that using multiple transmit antennas and space-time block coding provides remarkable performance at the expense of almost no extra processing.