A flexible space-time coding system with unequal error protection

Most multimedia source coders exhibit unequal bit error sensitivity. Efficient transmission system design should therefore incorporate the use of matching unequal error protection (UEP). In this paper, we present and evaluate a flexible space-time coding system with unequal error protection. Multiple transmit and receive antennas and bit-interleaved coded modulation techniques are used combined with rate compatible punctured convolutional codes. A near optimum iterative receiver is employed with a multiple-in multiple-out inverse mapper and a MAP decoder as component decoders. We illustrate how the UEP system gain can be achieved either as a power or bandwidth gain compared to the equal error protection system (EEP) for the identical source and equal overall quality for both the UEP and EEP systems. An example with two/three transmit and two receive antennas using 8PSK modulation is given for the block fading channel.