Error performance analysis of space-time codes over Rayleigh fading channels

Space-time coding is a bandwidth and power efficient method of communication over fading channels that realizes the benefits of multiple transmit and receive antennas. This novel technique has attracted much attention recently. However, currently the only analytical guide to the performance of space-time codes is an upper bound [1] which could be quite loose in many cases. In this paper, an exact pairwise error probability is derived for space-time codes operating over Rayleigh fading channels. Based on this expression, an analytical estimate for bit error probability is computed, taking into account dominant error events. Simulation results indicate that the estimates are of high accuracy in a broad range of signal-to-noise ratios.