Quasi-orthogonal STBC with minimum decoding complexity

In this paper, we consider a quasi-orthogonal (QO) space-time block code (STBC) with minimum decoding complexity (MDC-QO-STBC). We formulate its algebraic structure and propose a systematic method for its construction. We show that a maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder for this MDC-QO-STBC, for any number of transmit antennas, only requires the joint detection of two real symbols. Assuming the use of a square or rectangular quadratic-amplitude modulation (QAM) or multiple phase-shift keying (MPSK) modulation for this MDC-QO-STBC, we also obtain the optimum constellation rotation angle, in order to achieve full diversity and optimum coding gain. We show that the maximum achievable code rate of these MDC-QO-STBC is 1 for three and four antennas and 3/4 for five to eight antennas. We also show that the proposed MDC-QO-STBC has several desirable properties, such as a more even power distribution among antennas and better scalability in adjusting the number of transmit antennas, compared with the coordinate interleaved orthogonal design (CIOD) and asymmetric CIOD (ACIOD) codes. For the case of an odd number of transmit antennas, MDC-QO-STBC also has better decoding performance than CIOD.