A New Design of Differential Space-Time Block Code Allowing Symbol-Wise Decoding

For four (or more) transmitters, a new design of differential space-time block code allowing symbol-wise decoding is presented in this letter. The new design not only has the minimum (symbol-wise) decoding complexity as that by Yuen, Guan and Tjhung (YGT) but also yields a lower error rate. While the YGT code uses a specially designed symbol constellation, the new code uses a conventional QAM with a rotation. At a high data rate such as 3 bps/Hz, the new design with symbol-wise decoding complexity can even yield a lower error rate than the code by Zhu and Jafarkhani that has the pair-wise decoding complexity.