Orthogonal space-time block coding over time-selective fading channels: a PIC detector for the Hi systems

One major assumption in all space-time block coding (STBC) schemes is that the channel remains static over the length of the codeword. However, time selective fading channels do exist, and in such case the conventional STBC detectors can suffer from a large error floor in the high signal-to-noise ratio cases. As a sequel to our previous papers on this subject, this paper aims to eliminate the error floor of the H_i coded STBC systems (i = 3 and 4) by employing the technique of parallel interference cancellation (PIC). Compared with the conventional H_i detector, the PlC detector incurs a moderately higher computational complexity, but this can be justified by the enormous performance improvement.