Concatenated space-time codes for quasi-static fading channels: constrained capacity and code design

The problem of designing codes with close-to-capacity performance on the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) quasi-static fading channel (QSFC) is addressed. We consider three different coding schemes - namely, direct transmission of random-like codes, concatenation with linear processing orthogonal space-time block codes (o-STBC) and concatenation with space-time trellis codes (STTC). The constrained modulation outage capacity of each of these schemes is computed. It is shown how low-density parity check (LDPC) codes may be used to approach capacity in these cases. For the STTC, the serial concatenation scheme of Gulati et al. (2001) turns out to have close to capacity performance.