Concatenated coded modulation techniques and orthogonal space-time block codes in the presence of fading channel estimation errors

Performance of coding and modulation systems in fading channels is usually analysed under the assumption that the receiver has perfect knowledge of channel condition. However, various shortcomings in practical channel estimation techniques lead to imperfections, resulting in channel estimation errors. The authors analyse a practical coding and modulation scheme for multiple-antenna systems considering channel estimation errors. The novelty of this study resides in providing error probability bounds for concatenated trellis coded modulation (TCM) or bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) schemes with orthogonal space--time block codes (OSTBC) under imperfect channel estimation assumption. Moreover, our analytical results quantify the performance degradation associated with various levels of channel estimation error variance. The authors also show that if channel estimation quality does not improve sufficiently with SNR, there would be error floor in performance, such that the coded system could get outperformed by a system with differential signalling that requires no channel estimation. Simulation results are presented, which confirm the validity of the analytical results.