Improved space-time trellis codes for correlated MIMO channels

Space-time code designs commonly rely on the assumption of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh channels. However, poor scattering conditions can have detrimental effects on the performance of space-time codes. We derive new space-time trellis codes that are robust in the presence of a large variety of propagation conditions. First, robust space-time trellis codes are derived when the transmitter has no channel knowledge. Then, trellis codes exploiting some statistical knowledge of the channel at the transmitter are presented. Codes satisfying these criteria are shown to perform much better in real-world channels than codes designed only for i.i.d. channels.