Space-time turbo coded modulation for wireless communication systems

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 RecSTTrCs 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.