Space-time trellis codes with transmit antenna selection

A scheme combining transmit antenna selection (TAS) and space-time trellis code (STTC), which is referred to as the TAS/STTC scheme, is considered. In this scheme, two transmit antennas, which maximise the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver, are chosen to transmit the baseline STTCs designed for two transmit antennas. It is shown by simulation that, similar to two other transmit antenna selection schemes investigated previously by the authors, this scheme also achieves a full diversity order as if all the transmit antennas were used. In addition, this scheme has a fixed low decoding complexity no matter how high the diversity order. Unlike the traditional STTC, this scheme does not have the requirement for minimum memory order to achieve a full diversity order.