Phase error estimation and compensation for space-time coded communication systems

The paper studies the effects of phase errors that exist among different transmit antennas and different propagation paths in space-time coded communication systems, and presents a phase error estimation and compensation algorithm for such systems. The performance of the algorithm over an additive white Gaussian noise channel is studied through analysis and simulations. Results show that phase errors degrade the system performance significantly. and that they must be compensated to guarantee satisfactory operation. It is also shown that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the bit-error rate performance of the space-time coded system.