An eigen-assisted noncoherent receiver for Alamouti-type space-time modulation

We consider noncoherent block detection of Alamouti-type space-time (ST) modulations, employing PSK constellations in quasi-static Rayleigh-fading channels with L receive antennas. The proposed detector, termed an eigen-assisted (EA) receiver, constructs a sample-correlation matrix from the L length-N received signals, determines its two principal eigenvectors, and uses these eigenvectors to reconstruct the two transmitted length-N patterns. Scalar differential encoding is performed at the transmit antennas, and as a result, the transmitted data can be recovered from the reconstructed patterns using scalar multiple-symbol differential detection. In other words, ST-differential encoding is not required at the transmitter and the constellation expansion typically observed with nonbinary signaling is avoided; a highly desirable result under a peak power constraint. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed EA-receiver is only 0.25 dB away from the coherent detection (with differential encoding) lower bound for the modulations considered. For quadrature phase-shift keying at a bit-error rate of 10^-4, our EA-receiver with N=64 outperforms a decision feedback detector by 1 dB (L=1) and conventional ST-differential detection by more than 2.5 dB (L=2). Note that the complexity of our receiver, per symbol decision, is essentially independent of N and is comparable to that of a conventional ST-differential detector. The conclusion is reached that the proposed encoder/receiver pair is a promising alternative to currently known noncoherent techniques employing Alamouti-type ST-modulations.