On designing full rank space time block codes with high code rate

This paper examines high-rate full-rank space-time block codes for systems with a reasonably large number of transmit and receive antennas. The results presented by Hughes (2000), and Hochwald and Sweldens (2000) are extended to include the system signal-to-noise ratio as a parameter in the code search criterion. In addition, codes with maximized minimum Euclidean distance between all codeword pairs are also considered in this study. The performances of these codes are compared in terms of the system symbol-error-rate. For the system under consideration, all signals arriving at the receiver are assumed to be independently Rayleigh faded. Full rank group codes are employed to reduce the complexity of the code search. Although the present work is focused on differential space-time modulation, the procedure is also applicable to coherent system and can be extended to nongroup codes as well.