Universal space-time trellis codes

The compound channel theorem for linear Gaussian vector channels indicates that a single code can provide reliable communication on all channels that induce a minimum amount of mutual information. This paper discusses the search for space-time trellis codes that deliver such consistently good performance on every matrix channel that has a proximity to channel capacity similar to standard trellis codes in AWGN. By characterizing the minimum distance of an error event transformed by the channel as a function of the eigenvalues of the channel matrix, we search for codes having the largest such worst-case distance for systems with two transmit antennas. Proposed trellis codes found by exhaustive search guarantee coded performance on every matrix channel without sacrificing error performance under quasistatic Rayleigh fading.