A performance evaluation of CSTC (Cooperative Space Time Coding) with spatially cor-related fading and imperfect channel estimation in Gaussian as well as impulsive noise is presented. Closed form expressions for the pairwise error probability conditioned on the estimated channel gains are derived by assuming the components of the received vector are independent given the estimated channel gains. An expurgated union bound using the limiting before averaging technique given the estimated channel gains is then obtained. Although this assumption is not strictly valid, simulation results show that the bound is accurate in estimating the diversity order as long the channel estimation is not very poor. It is found that CSTC with block fading channels can reduce the frame error rate (FER) relative to SUSTC (Single User Space Time Coding) with quasi-static fading channels, even when the channel gains for each user are strongly correlated and when the channel estimations are very poor. A decision metric for CSTC with spatially correlated fading, imperfect channel estimation, and impulsive mixture Gaussian noise is derived which yields lower FERs than the Gaussian noise decision metric. Simulation results show that the FER performance of CSTC with mixture Gaussian noise outperforms CSTC with Gaussian noise at low SNR. At high SNR, the FER performance of CSTC with Gaussian noise is better than the FER performance of CSTC with mixture Gaussian noise due to the heavy tail of the mixture Gaussian noise.

A performance evaluation of CSTC (Cooperative Space Time Coding) with spatially cor-related fading and imperfect channel estimation in Gaussian as well as impulsive noise is presented. Closed form expressions for the pairwise error probability conditioned on the estimated channel gains are derived by assuming the components of the received vector are independent given the estimated channel gains. An expurgated union bound using the limiting before averaging technique given the estimated channel gains is then obtained. Although this assumption is not strictly valid, simulation results show that the bound is accurate in estimating the diversity order as long the channel estimation is not very poor. It is found that CSTC with block fading channels can reduce the frame error rate (FER) relative to SUSTC (Single User Space Time Coding) with quasi-static fading channels, even when the channel gains for each user are strongly correlated and when the channel estimations are very poor. A decision metric for CSTC with spatially correlated fading, imperfect channel estimation, and impulsive mixture Gaussian noise is derived which yields lower FERs than the Gaussian noise decision metric. Simulation results show that the FER performance of CSTC with mixture Gaussian noise outperforms CSTC with Gaussian noise at low SNR. At high SNR, the FER performance of CSTC with Gaussian noise is better than the FER performance of CSTC with mixture Gaussian noise due to the heavy tail of the mixture Gaussian noise.

A performance evaluation of CSTC (Cooperative Space Time Coding) with spatially cor-related fading and imperfect channel estimation in Gaussian as well as impulsive noise is presented. Closed form expressions for the pairwise error probability conditioned on the estimated channel gains are derived by assuming the components of the received vector are independent given the estimated channel gains. An expurgated union bound using the limiting before averaging technique given the estimated channel gains is then obtained. Although this assumption is not strictly valid, simulation results show that the bound is accurate in estimating the diversity order as long the channel estimation is not very poor. It is found that CSTC with block fading channels can reduce the frame error rate (FER) relative to SUSTC (Single User Space Time Coding) with quasi-static fading channels, even when the channel gains for each user are strongly correlated and when the channel estimations are very poor. A decision metric for CSTC with spatially correlated fading, imperfect channel estimation, and impulsive mixture Gaussian noise is derived which yields lower FERs than the Gaussian noise decision metric. Simulation results show that the FER performance of CSTC with mixture Gaussian noise outperforms CSTC with Gaussian noise at low SNR. At high SNR, the FER performance of CSTC with Gaussian noise is better than the FER performance of CSTC with mixture Gaussian noise due to the heavy tail of the mixture Gaussian noise. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of / Graduate

Automatic Repeat-reQuest (ARQ) schemes are extensively used in communication systems and computer networks to achieve reliable transmission. Using space-time codes (STCs) with multiple input multiple output (MIMO) or multiple input single output (MISO) systems is an effective way to combat multipath fading, which is the most severe impairment for wireless communication systems. STCs are designed to use the rich scattering multipath environment provided by using multiple transmit antennas. The work done in this thesis focuses on the use of ARQ schemes with non-orthogonal space-time block codes (NOSTBCs) based on Reed Solomon codes. The truncated-selective ARQ (TS-ARQ) scheme is considered and three novel hybrid ARQ (HARQ) schemes are proposed. Simulation results reveal that, compared to using TS-ARQ with orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBCs), using NOSTBCs with any of the three proposed HARQ schemes can provide significant gains in terms of dropped packet rate and spectral efficiency at the cost of increased decoding complexity. The performance can be further improved by using the water filling principle to adaptively allocate transmit power among transmit antennas.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 21, 2002 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / Signal fading and intersymbol interference created by multipath propagation have traditionally limited the throughput on wireless communications systems. However, recent research has demonstrated that by using multiple antennas on both transmit and receive ends of the link, the multipath channel can actually be exploited to achieve increased communication throughput over single-antenna systems. This paper provides an introductory description of such multi-antenna communications systems, focusing on basic explanations of how they achieve capacity gains. Computed and measured capacity results are used to demonstrate the potential of these systems.

Space-time coded systems developed in the last ten years have been designed primarily using linear modulation. Non-linear continuous phase modulation has desirable constant envelope properties and considerable potential in space-time coded systems. The work in this thesis is focussed on developing and analysing an integrated space-time coded continuous phase modulated (STC-CPM) system. The coding of the space-time encoder and the modulation is incorporated into a single trellis encoder. This allows state combining, which leads to complexity reduction due to the reduced number of states. Design criteria for STC-CPM are summarized and the Euclidean distance is shown to be important for code design. The integrated STC-CPM system design enables systematic spacetime code searches that find optimal space-time codes, to be easily implemented. Optimal rate-1/2 and rate-2/3 space-time codes are found by maximizing the system's minimum squared Euclidean distance. These codes can provide high throughput and good coding gains over un-optimized full rank codes, such as delay diversity, in a quasi-static flat fading environment. Performance bounds are developed using a union bound argument and the pairwise error probability. Approximations of the bounds are evaluated. These truncated upper bounds predict the slopes of the simulated performance curves at low error rates.

Polynomial phase modulated (PPM) signals have been shown to provide improved error rate performance with respect to conventional modulation formats under additive white Gaussian noise and fading channels in single-input single-output (SISO) communication systems. In this dissertation, systems with two and four transmit antennas using PPM signals were presented. In both cases we employed full-rate space-time block codes in order to take advantage of the multipath channel. For two transmit antennas, we used the orthogonal space-time block code (OSTBC) proposed by Alamouti and performed symbol-wise decoding by estimating the phase coefficients of the PPM signal using three different methods: maximum-likelihood (ML), sub-optimal ML (S-ML) and the high-order ambiguity function (HAF). In the case of four transmit antennas, we used the full-rate quasi-OSTBC (QOSTBC) proposed by Jafarkhani. However, in order to ensure the best error rate performance, PPM signals were selected such as to maximize the QOSTBC’s minimum coding gain distance (CGD). Since this method does not always provide a unique solution, an additional criterion known as maximum channel interference coefficient (CIC) was proposed. Through Monte Carlo simulations it was shown that by using QOSTBCs along with the properly selected PPM constellations based on the CGD and CIC criteria, full diversity in flat fading channels and thus, low BER at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) can be ensured. Lastly, the performance of symbol-wise decoding for QOSTBCs was evaluated. In this case a quasi zero-forcing method was used to decouple the received signal and it was shown that although this technique reduces the decoding complexity of the system, there is a penalty to be paid in terms of error rate performance at high SNRs.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 18-21, 2004 / Town & Country Resort, San Diego, California / This paper presents a method of detecting the Tier I modulation SOQPSK when it is used in a space-time coded (STC) system in which there is a non-negligible differential delay between the received signals. Space-time codes are useful to eliminate data dropouts which occur on aeronautical telemetry channels in which transmit diversity is employed. The proposed detection algorithm employs a trellis to detect the data while accounting for the offset between the in-phase and quadrature-phase components of the signals as well as the differential delay. The performance of the system is simulated and presented and it is shown that the STC eliminates the BER floor which results from the data dropouts.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 20-23, 2003 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Multiple antennas promise high data capacity for wireless communications. Most space-time coding schemes in literature focus on the rich scatter environment. In this paper, we argue that minimax criterion is a good design criterion for space-time codes over the avionic telemetry channels. This design criterion is different than those of space-time codes over rich scattering Rayleigh fading channels. Theoretical and numerical results show that the codes with optimal performance in Rayleigh fading channels do not necessarily have optimal performance in avionic telemetry channels. Therefore, the space-time codes should be carefully designed/selected when used in the avionic telemetry channels.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 20-23, 2003 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Space-time coding (STC) for QPSK where the transmitted signals are received with the same delay is well known. This paper examines the case where the transmitted signals are received with a nonnegligible delay differential when the Alamouti 2x1 STC is used. Such a differential can be caused by a large spacing of the transmit antennas. In this paper, an expression for the received signal with a delay differential is derived and a decoding algorithm for that signal is developed. In addition, the performance of this new algorithm is compared to the standard Alamouti decoding algorithm for various delay differentials.