Performance Analysis of Cooperative Space-Time Coded Systems

In this paper we analyze the performance of a general user cooperative space-time coded system in wireless network. The upper bound of the pairwise error probability (PEP) is derived, on slow, quasi-slow and fast fading channels. From the upper bounds, we show that cooperative space-time coded system in wireless network can achieve full cooperation diversity gain and coding gain. Based on the performance analysis, we formulate a generalized space-time code design criteria to construct better codes for user cooperation systems.