Evolution from symbol‐level space–time coded MIMO to chip‐level space–time coded MIMO: a review

Space–time coded multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) technology is an important technique that improves the performance of wireless communication systems significantly without consuming bandwidth resource. This paper first discusses the characteristics and limitations of traditional symbol‐level space–time coding schemes, which work largely on the basis of an assumption that signals are sent to a block‐fading channel. Therefore, the symbol‐level space–time coding schemes rely on symbol‐level signal processing. Taking advantage of orthogonal complementary codes, we propose a novel MIMO scheme, in this paper, based on chip‐level space–time coding that is different from the traditional symbol‐level space–time coding. With the help of space–time–frequency complementary coding and multicarrier modem, the proposed scheme is able to achieve multipath interference‐free and multiuser interference‐free communications with simple a correlator detector. The proposed chip‐level space–time coded MIMO works well even in a fast fading channel in addition to its flexibility to achieve diversity and multiplexing gains simultaneously in varying channel environments. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive modulation for space–frequency block coded OFDM systems

The growing popularity of both multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems has created the need for adaptive modulation to integrate temporal, spatial and spectral components together. In this article, an overview of some adaptive modulation schemes for OFDM is presented. Then a new scheme consisting of a combination of adaptive modulation, OFDM, high-order space-frequency block codes (SFBC), and antenna selection is presented. The proposed scheme exploits the benefits of space–frequency block codes, OFDM, adaptive modulation and antenna selection to provide high-quality transmission for broadband wireless communications. The spectral efficiency advantage of the proposed system is examined. It is shown that antenna selection with adaptive modulation can greatly improve the performance of the conventional SFBC–OFDM systems.     

Differential space–time modulation for DS‐CDMA systems

Differential space–time modulation (DSTM) schemes were recently proposed to fully exploit the transmit and receive antenna diversities without the need for channel state information. DSTM is attractive in fast flat fading channels since accurate channel estimation is difficult to achieve. In this paper, we propose a new modulation scheme to improve the performance of DS‐CDMA systems in fast time‐dispersive fading channels. This scheme is referred to as the differential space–time modulation for DS‐CDMA (DST‐CDMA) systems. The new modulation and demodulation schemes are especially studied for the fast fading down‐link transmission in DS‐CDMA systems employing multiple transmit antennas and one receive antenna. We present three demodulation schemes, referred to as the differential space–time Rake (DSTR) receiver, differential space–time deterministic (DSTD) receiver, and differential space–time deterministic de‐prefix (DSTDD) receiver, respectively. The DSTD receiver exploits the known information of the spreading sequences and their delayed paths deterministically besides the Rake‐type combination; consequently, it can outperform the DSTR receiver, which employs the Rake‐type combination only, especially for moderate‐to‐high SNR. The DSTDD receiver avoids the effect of intersymbol interference and hence can offer better performance than the DSTD receiver. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the performance of recursive space–frequency codes and iterative decoding in wideband OFDM‐MIMO systems: simulated and measured results

In this paper, we study the performance of a bandwidth efficient space–frequency turbo encoding scheme over wideband channels. Results are presented for simulated wideband MIMO channels consisting of two transmit antennas and up to two receive antennas. In addition, wideband channel measurements undertaken with practical multi‐element antenna structures at both the access point (AP) and mobile terminal (MT) are presented. Analysis is in terms of channel capacity, 10% channel outage capacity and space–frequency iterative decoding for an lEEE802.11a physical layer complaint modem. It is shown when operating with a spectral efficiency of 1.2 bits/s/Hz, the iterative decoded space–time codes comes within approximately 4.7 dB of 10% outage capacity over Rayleigh fading wideband channels with two transmit and two receive antennas. Over measured channels the iterative decoding scheme performs within 7.7 dB 10% of outage capacity. Losses due to channel state information estimation are also investigated. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Diversity order analysis of orthogonal space–time block coding over keyhole fading channels with antenna selection

Although there are many research results for the keyhole fading channels in the current literature, fewer results have investigated the antenna selection scheme and quantified the diversity order. In this letter, we first derive some simple statistics of the output signal‐to‐noise ratio for the orthogonal space–time block coding over keyhole fading channels. On the basis of these results, we derive an approximate BER expression for the keyhole MIMO channels with receive antenna selection scheme. Results show that the diversity order with receive antenna selection is min{n_R,n_T}for n_R ≠ n_T, which means that the full diversity order with antenna selection is maintained. Finally, numerical results demonstrate the accuracy of our analytical expressions and the tightness of approximate formulas. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance analysis of MIMO cognitive amplify‐and‐forward relay networks with orthogonal space–time block codes

In this paper, we study the performance of multiple‐input multiple‐output cognitive amplify‐and‐forward relay networks using orthogonal space–time block coding over independent Nakagami‐m fading. It is assumed that both the direct transmission and the relaying transmission from the secondary transmitter to the secondary receiver are applicable. In order to process the received signals from these links, selection combining is adopted at the secondary receiver. To evaluate the system performance, an expression for the outage probability valid for an arbitrary number of transceiver antennas is presented. We also derive a tight approximation for the symbol error rate to quantify the error probability. In addition, the asymptotic performance in the high signal‐to‐noise ratio regime is investigated to render insights into the diversity behavior of the considered networks. To reveal the effect of network parameters on the system performance in terms of outage probability and symbol error rate, selected numerical results are presented. In particular, these results show that the performance of the system is enhanced when increasing the number of antennas at the transceivers of the secondary network. However, increasing the number of antennas at the primary receiver leads to a degradation in the secondary system performance. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the blind channel identifiability of multiple‐input multiple‐output space–time block code systems using Joint Approximate Diagonalization of Eigenmatrices

Channel identifiability for multiple‐input multiple‐output space–time block code (MIMO‐STBC) systems using Joint Approximate Diagonalization of Eigenmatrices (JADE) is studied in this paper. Compared with the previous blind MIMO‐STBC channel estimation methods in literature, the method proposed in this paper is more suitable for non‐cooperative scenario because it needs less prior information and can be applied to a general class of STBCs. The main contribution of the paper consists in the theoretical proof that, although the sources transmitted by different antennas of MIMO‐STBC systems are not independent, they can be retrieved from the received data by directly using JADE in most cases. The conclusion is also demonstrated by a simulation. This shows that the classical JADE algorithm can be applied to a wider range of situations rather than strictly independent sources. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiuser receiver scheme for full‐rate space–time coded CDMA system with imperfect estimation

By introducing a full‐rate space–time coding (STC) scheme, a synchronous CDMA (code division multiple access) system with full‐rate STC is given, and the corresponding uplink performance is investigated in Rayleigh fading channel with imperfect estimation. Considering that existing STC‐CDMA system has high decoding complexity, low‐complexity multiuser receiver schemes are developed for perfect and imperfect estimations, respectively. The schemes can make full use of the complex orthogonality of STC to reduce the high decoding complexity of the existing scheme, and have linear decoding complexity compared with the existing scheme with exponential decoding complexity. Moreover, the proposed schemes can achieve almost the same performance as the existing scheme. Compared with full‐diversity STC‐CDMA, the given full‐rate STC‐CDMA can achieve full data rate, low complexity, and partial diversity, and form efficient spatial interleaving. Thus, the concatenation of channel coding can effectively compensate for the performance loss due to partial diversity. Simulation results show that the full‐rate STC‐CDMA has lower bit error rate (BER) than full‐diversity STC‐CDMA systems under the same system throughput and concatenation of channel code. Moreover, the system BER with imperfect estimation are worse than that with perfect estimation due to the estimation error, which implies that the developed multiuser receiver schemes are valid and reasonable. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differential space–time network coding in MIMO two‐way relay channel network

This paper focuses on noncoherent detection scheme for multiple‐input multiple‐output two‐way relay channel network with two two‐antennas source nodes and one single‐antenna relay node. An orthogonal differential space–time network coding (ODSTNC) scheme based on relay detection and forward protocol is proposed. The proposed scheme combines space–time coding with network coding, and the differential modulation and detection are used in both multiple access stage and broadcast stage. The multiple‐symbol differential detection is employed at the relay. The maximum likelihood decision and its low‐complexity sphere decoding decision are given. The upper and lower bounds on the average symbol error probability for this system under differential binary phase shift keying (DBPSK) are derived, and a diversity order of 2 is confirmed to be achieved. The simulation results show that the ODSTNC scheme has good performance, and it is available for the applications of far distance signal transmission between two terminals where channel state information is unknown. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Regularised analytical constant modulus algorithm for space–time coded systems

Space–time coding is an effective approach to increase the data rate and capacity of a wireless communication system that employs multiple transmit and multiple receive antennas. It involves coding techniques that are designed for multiple transmit antennas. We apply the analytical constant modulus algorithm (ACMA) for blind channel estimation (no use of training sequences) of space–time coded systems and explore the constant modulus (CM) constraints of the transmitted space–time codes (STCs). A regularised scheme that gives good performance in Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise environments is proposed. Computer simulation results in both single-user and multiuser cases show the improvement in error performance.     

Multilevel space–time trellis coded cooperation with channel state information at transmitter

In this paper, the authors propose a system where a number of cooperating mobile nodes transmit information to a common destination node. Each cooperating node has a set of decoders to detect the information of other nodes and a set of encoders to further encode the decoded information as well as its own information using multilevel space–time trellis coding (MLSTTC) scheme. The coded information is mapped using multi‐resolution modulation partitioning to M‐ary quadrature amplitude modulation constellation. The mapped symbols are weighted based on the available channel state information at transmitting nodes. The weighting of transmitting symbols provides beamforming resulting in receive signal‐to‐noise ratio gain. The weighted symbols are sent to destination node through two transmit antennas. If the information of other nodes has been correctly decoded at the cooperating node, then the destination node receives the information of each node as many times as there are number of transmitting nodes, thus achieving full diversity order. A multistage Viterbi decoder is used at the destination node to extract information of each mobile node. The results indicate that the performance of proposed cooperative MLSTTC system is superior to non‐cooperative MLSTTC system. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Layered space–time block code for hybrid satellite–terrestrial broadcasting systems

Multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) is a topic of high interest for the next generation of broadcasting systems. Even if they have begun to be proposed for the second generation of terrestrial digital TV, there are still gaps in the deployment of MIMO schemes in single‐frequency networks. This deployment becomes more critical when a hybrid satellite–terrestrial transmission is adopted because of the different aspects of the respective transmission links. In this paper, we propose to apply a layered space–time block code (LSTBC) for MIMO schemes in this hybrid transmission for next‐generation handheld (NGH) systems. The contribution of this paper is multi‐fold. First, we detail the land mobile satellite channel specifications describing the satellite link. Then, we propose to apply a MIMO scheme between the antennas of the satellite site and the terrestrial site. Then, we introduce the LSTBC scheme for NGH broadcasting systems. The proposed code is based on a layered construction designed to be efficient in shadowing regions. This efficiency is verified in a line‐of‐sight situation but also in low, moderate and deep shadow situations. The LSTBC scheme is then a very promising candidate for NGH systems with MIMO transmission. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive modulation for SVD-based MIMO systems with outdated CSI

siderably more to be robust against CSI imperfection.     

Reduced‐rank space–time adaptive interference suppression for navigation systems based on QR decomposition and approximations of basis functions

This paper presents a novel reduced‐rank space–time adaptive processing (STAP) algorithm for interference suppression in global positioning system (GPS) receivers with low computational complexity for protection against the multipath and jamming interferences. The proposed STAP algorithm is based on the least‐squares (LS) criterion to jointly optimize a projection matrix, which is used for dimensionality reduction, and the reduced‐rank filter. The main novelties are the design of the projection matrix based on approximations of basis functions, the pattern matching between the projection matrix and the received data, and the derivation of a QR decomposition‐based reduced‐rank recursive LS algorithm for practical implementations. The proposed scheme works on an instantaneous basis, i.e. at each time instant, the most suitable pattern and the rank of the projection matrix are selected to reduce the dimensionality of the received data aiming at minimizing the squared error, while using an improved search algorithm to save the effort in finding the best projection matrix. Simulation results in a GPS system show that compared to existing reduced‐rank and full‐rank algorithms, the proposed algorithm has a much lower computational complexity, and remarkably better performance for interference suppression. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel grouped multilevel dynamic space–time trellis coding scheme

Grouped multilevel space–time trellis codes (GMLSTTCs) utilize multilevel coding, antenna grouping and STTCs for simultaneously providing coding gain, diversity improvement and increased spectral efficiency. The performance of GMLSTTCs is limited because of using predefined STTCs as component codes in multilevel coding. GMLSTTCs assume perfect channel state information (CSI) at the receiver only and do not consider the CSI at the transmitter. It has been shown that when perfect or partial CSI is available at the transmitter, the performance and capacity of a space–time coded system can be further improved. In this paper, we present new codes, designed by combining GMLSTTCs and the CSI information at the transmitter, henceforth referred to as grouped multilevel dynamic space–time trellis codes (GMLDSTTCs). A code set having different sets of generator sequences is selected that matches best with the current channel profile. The selected code set is used for generating DSTTCs. DSTTCs are used as component codes in GMLSTTCs instead of predefined STTCs to generate GMLDSTTCs. Analysis and simulation results show that GMLDSTTCs outperform GMLSTTCs. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SCLDGM coded modulation for MIMO systems with spatial multiplexing and space‐time block codes

We analyze Multiple‐Input Multiple‐Output (MIMO) coded modulation systems where either Bit‐Interleaved Coded Modulation (BICM) with spatial multiplexing or concatenation of channel coding and Space‐Time Block Codes (STBCs) is used at transmission, assuming iterative Turbo‐like decoding at reception. We optimize Serially‐Concatenated Low‐Density Generator Matrix (SCLDGM) codes (a subclass of LDPC codes) for each system configuration, with the goal of assessing its ability to approach the capacity limits in either ergodic or quasi‐static channels. Our focus is on three relevant STBCs: the Orthogonal Space‐Time Block Codes (OSTBCs) for two transmit antennas (i.e., the Alamouti code), which enables optimum detection with low complexity; the Golden code, which provides a capacity increase with respect to the input constellation; and Linear Dispersion (LD) codes, which enable practical detection in asymmetrical antenna configurations (i.e., more transmit than receive antennas) for cases in which optimum detection is infeasible. We conclude that BICM without concatenation with STBCs is in general the best option, except for Alamouti‐coded 2×1 and Golden‐coded 2×2 MIMO systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interlevel‐correlated orthogonal space–time block codes based on the expanded signal constellation

Orthogonal space–time block codes provide full diversity with a very simple decoding scheme. However, they do not provide much coding gain. For a given space–time block code, we combine several component codes in conjunction with set partitioning of the expanded signal constellation according to the coding gain distance (CGD) criterion. By providing proper interlevel coding between adjacent blocks, we can design an orthogonal space–time block code with high rate, large coding gain, and low decoding complexity. The error performance of an example code is compared with some codes in computer simulation. These codes are compared based on the situation of the same transmission rate, space diversity order, and state complexity of decoding trellis. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the performance of two‐way relay channels using space–time codes

In this paper, we explore the advantages of network coding and space–time coding in improving the performance of two‐way‐relayed communications where two terminals absent of direct links exchange information through a single relay in between. Network coding allows embracing the interference from other terminals thereby turning it into a capacity boost. The application of space–time codes yields higher capacity by exploiting the spatial diversity. The joint performance of both techniques is studied in this paper. Specifically, we consider the class of decode‐and‐forward (DF) relaying strategy, evaluated in terms of symbol error rate using BPSK and QPSK modulations by both theoretical analysis and simulation. Based on our results, DF outperforms the amplify‐and‐decode and partial‐decode‐and‐forward protocols. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Physical‐layer network coding with limited feedback using orthogonal space–time block codes

This paper introduces limited feedback technique into physical‐layer network coding (PLNC) scheme, which is the most spectrally efficient protocol in two‐way relay channels, consisted of one relay and two end nodes (sources). Decode‐and‐forward (DF) and partial‐decode‐and‐forward (PDF) strategies are considered for PLNC, and all nodes are assumed to have two antennas to allow transmission by Alamouti's orthogonal space–time block code to provide diversity. In DF, by limited feedback, one of the sources is informed about instantaneous channel state information (CSI) to increase the bit error rate (BER) performance at relay. The closed‐form upper and lower bounds on the bit error probability are derived for binary phase‐shift keying (BPSK) and quadrature PSK (QPSK) modulations and approved via computer simulations. In PDF strategy, each source has to know CSI between relay and the other source for decoding, which causes extra protocol complexity. Moreover, for the system in which all nodes have two antennas, classical PDF strategy does not satisfy orthogonality at the end nodes. Therefore, in this paper, a modified‐PDF (MPDF) strategy with limited feedback is proposed. In MPDF, for decoding at the end nodes, differential phase information between channel fading coefficients having maximum amplitudes is fed back to the sources by relay. This approach enables single‐symbol decoding, besides full diversity, and sources do not need to know CSI between relay and the other source. It is shown via computer simulations that MPDF strategy provides significantly better BER performance than the classical PDF for BPSK and QPSK modulations.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Blind carrier frequency offset mitigation in space–time block‐coded multicarrier code division multiple access uplink transmission

In this paper, a novel blind carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation is proposed on the basis of the linearly constrained optimization for the uplink transmission of space–time block‐coded multicarrier code division multiple access systems. First, the full‐dimensional spatial‐and‐temporal data are formed to avoid violation of the second‐order statistics in the conventional receiver design. A set of weight vectors is then provided for acquiring each multipath signal from the desired user while the others get rejected. Finally, the estimated CFO is obtained in accordance with maximizing the well‐defined measurement function, which is formulated by collecting all the output powers of the receiver. A space–time averaging technique is also proposed to enhance the robustness to the finite sample effect. Simulation study confirms that with the proposed CFO estimator used in the preceding, the receiver can successfully achieve the same performance of the optimal receiver working in the absence of CFO. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.