Exact SER and Diversity Gain Analysis of SDM-STBC MIMO Systems over Flat Fading Channels

We study the symbol error rate (SER) analysis for the zero-forcing detection with successive interference cancellation (ZF-SIC) in the spatial division multiplexing space time block coded (SDM-STBC) MIMO system. Independent identically Rayleigh fading MIMO channel is considered. Relying on the results obtained from matrix variate distribution, we evaluate the SER for the ZF and ZF-SIC detection in the SDM-STBC system. These analytical SER curves are shown to agree with the SER curves from Monte Carlo simulations. We also evaluate numerically the finite-SNR diversity gain for the ZF and ZF-SIC detection in the SDM-STBC MIMO system. The finite-SNR diversity gain for either ZF or ZF-SIC detection grows as SNR increases, and, is upper-limited by 2n_r - n_t + 2, where n_r and n_t denote the numbers of antennas at the receiver and transmitter sides, respectively.