Space-time codes (STC) are a class of signaling techniques, offering coding and diversity gains along with improved spectral efficiency. These codes exploit both the spatial and the temporal diversity of the wireless link by combining the design of the error correction code, modulation scheme and array processing. STC are well suited for improving the downlink performance, which is the bottleneck in asymmetric applications such as downstream Internet. Three original contributions to the area of STC are presented in this dissertation. First, the development of analytic tools that determine the fundamental limits on the performance of STC in a variety of channel conditions. For trellis-type STC, transfer function based techniques are applied to derive performance bounds over Rayleigh, Rician and correlated fading environments. For block-type STC, an analytic framework that supports various complex orthogonal designs with arbitrary signal cardinalities and array configurations is developed. In the second part of the dissertation, the Virginia Tech Space-Time Advanced Radio (VT-STAR) is designed, introducing a multi-antenna hardware laboratory test bed, which facilitates characterization of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel and validation of various space-time approaches. In the third part of the dissertation, two novel space-time architectures paired with iterative processing principles are proposed. The first extends the suitability of STC to outdoor wireless communications by employing iterative equalization/decoding for time dispersive channels and the second employs iterative interference cancellation/decoding to solve the error propagation problem of Bell-Labs Layered Space-Time Architecture (BLAST). Results show that remarkable energy and spectral efficiencies are achievable by combining concepts drawn from space-time coding, multiuser detection, array processing and iterative decoding. / Ph. D.

Next generation wireless communications require transmission of reliable high data rate services. Second generation wireless communications systems use single-input multiple-output (SIMO) channel in the reverse link, meaning one transmit antenna at the user terminal and multiple receive antennas at the base station. Recently, information theoretic research has shown an enormous potential growth in the capacity of wireless systems by using multiple antenna arrays at both ends of the link. Space-time coding exploits the spatial-temporal diversity provided by the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channels, significantly increasing both system capacity and the reliability of the wireless link. The Virginia Tech Space-Time Advanced Radio (VT-STAR) system presents a test bed to demonstrate the capabilities of space-time coding techniques in real-time. Core algorithms are implemented on Texas Instruments TMS320C67 Evaluation Modules (EVM). The radio frequency subsystem is composed of multi-channel transmitter and receiver chains implemented in hardware for over the air transmission. The capabilities of the MIMO channel are demonstrated in a non-line of sight (NLOS) indoor environment. Also to characterize the capacity gains in an indoor environment this test bed was modified to take channel measurements. This thesis reports the system design of VT-STAR and the channel capacity gains observed in an indoor environment for MIMO channels. / Master of Science