Abstract High computational complexity constrains truly exhaustive computer searches for good space-time (ST) coded modulations mostly to low constraint length space-time trellis codes (STTrCs). Such codes are primarily devised to achieve maximum transmit diversity gain. Due to their low memory order, optimization based on the design criterion of secondary importance typically results in rather modest coding gains. As another disadvantage of limited freedom, the different low memory order STTrCs are almost exclusively constructed for either slow or fast fading channels. Therefore in practical applications characterized by extremely variable Doppler frequencies, the codes typically fail to demonstrate desired robustness. On the other hand, the main drawback of eventually increased constraint lengths is the prohibitively large decoding complexity, which may increase exponentially if optimal maximum-likelihood decoding (MLD) is applied at the receiver. Therefore, robust ST coded modulation schemes with large equivalent memory orders structured as to allow sub-optimal, low complexity, iterative decoding are needed. To address the aforementioned issues, this thesis proposes parallel concatenated space-time turbo coded modulation (STTuCM). It is among the earliest multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) coded modulation designs built on the intersection of ST coding and turbo coding. The systematic procedure for building an equivalent recursive STTrC (Rec-STTrC) based on the trellis diagram of an arbitrary non-recursive STTrC is first introduced. The parallel concatenation of punctured constituent Rec-STTrCs designed upon the non-recursive Tarokh et al. STTrCs (Tarokh-STTrCs) is evaluated under different narrow-band frequency flat block fading channels. Combined with novel transceiver designs, the applications for future wide-band code division multiple access (WCDMA) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based broadband radio communication systems are considered. The distance spectrum (DS) interpretation of the STTuCM and union bound (UB) performance analysis over slow and fast fading channels reveal the importance of multiplicities in the ST coding design. The modified design criteria for space-time codes (STCs) are introduced that capture the joint effects of error coefficients and multiplicities in the two dimensional DS of a code. Applied to STTuCM, such DS optimization resulted in a new set of constituent codes (CCs) for improved and robust performance over both slow and fast fading channels. A recursive systematic form with a primitive equivalent feedback polynomial is assumed for CCs to assure good convergence in iterative decoding. To justify such assumptions, the iterative decoding convergence analysis based on the Gaussian approximation of the extrinsic information is performed. The DS interpretation, introduced with respect to an arbitrary defined effective Hamming distance (EHD) and effective product distance (EPD), is applicable to the general class of geometrically non-uniform (GNU) CCs. With no constrains on the implemented information interleaving, the STTuCM constructed from newly designed CCs achieves full spatial diversity over quasi-static fading channels, the condition commonly identified as the most restrictive for robust performance over a variety of Doppler spreads. Finally, the impact of bit-wise and symbol-wise information interleaving on the performance of STTuCM is studied.

Efficient multimedia communication over mobile or wireless channels remains a challenging problem. To deal with that problem so far, the industry has followed mostly a divide and conquer approach, by considering separately the source of data (text, image, video, etc.) and the communication channel (electromagnetic waves across the air, a telephone line, a coaxial cable, etc.). The goal is always the same: to transmit (or store) more data reliably per unit of time, of energy, of physical medium, etc. With today's applications, the divide and conquer approach has, in a sense, started to show its limits. Let us consider, for example, the digital transmission of an image. At the transmitter, the first main step is data compression, at the source level. The number of bits that are necessary to represent the image with a given level of quality is reduced, usually by removing details in the image that are invisible (or less visible) to the human eye. The second main step is data protection, at the channel level. The transmission is made ideally resistant to deteriorations caused by the channel, by implementing techniques such as time/frequency/space expansions. In a sense, the two steps are quite antagonistic --- we first compress then expand the original signal --- and have different goals --- compression enables to transfer more data per unit of time/energy/medium while protection enables to transfer data reliably. At the receiver, the "reversed" operations are implemented. This separation in two steps dates back to Shannon's source and channel coding separation theorem in 1948 and has encouraged the division of the research community in two groups, one focusing on data compression, the other on data protection. This separation has also seduced the industry for the design, thereby supported by theory, of layered communication protocols. But this theorem holds only under asymptotic conditions that are rarely satisfied with today's multimedia content and mobile channels. Therefore, it is usually wise in practice to drop this strict separation and to allow at least some cross-layer cooperation between the source and channel layers. This is what lies behind the words joint source-channel techniques. As the name suggests, these techniques are optimized jointly, without a strict separation. Intuitively, since the optimization is less constrained from a mathematical standpoint, the solution can only be better or equivalent. In this thesis, we investigate a promising subset of these techniques, based on the turbo principle and on variable length codes. The potential of this subset has been illustrated for the first time in 2000, with an example that, since then, has been successfully improved in several directions. Unfortunately, most decoding algorithms have been so far developed on an ad hoc basis, without a unified view and often without specifying the approximations made. Besides, most code-related conclusions are based on simulations or on extrinsic information analysis. A theoretical framework on the error correcting properties of variable length codes in turbo systems is lacking. The purpose of this work, in three parts, is to fill in these gaps up to a certain extent. The first part presents the literature in this field and attempts to give a unified overview. The second part proposes a transmission system that generalizes previous systems from the literature, with the simple addition of a repetition code. While most previous systems are designed for bit streams with a high level of residual redundancy, the proposed system has the interesting flexibility to handle easily different levels of redundancy. Its performance is then analyzed for small levels of redundancy, which is a case not tackled extensively in the literature. This analysis leads notably to the discovery of surprising interleaving gains with reversible variable length codes. The third part develops the mathematical framework that was motivated during the second part but skipped on purpose for the sake of clarity. We first clarify several issues that arise with non-uniform bits and the extrinsic information charts, and propose and discuss two methods to compute these charts. Next, several theoretical results are stated on the robustness of variable length codes concatenated with linear error correcting codes. Notably, an approximate average distance spectrum of the concatenated code is rigorously developed. Together with the union bound, this spectrum provides upper bounds on the symbol and frame/packet error rates. These bounds are then analyzed from an interleaving gain standpoint and it is proved that the variable length code improves the interleaving gain if its spectrum is bounded.