Novel full diversity space time codes

A novel full diversity space-time trellis code, referred to as an assembled space-time trellis code (ASTTC), is presented in this letter. For this scheme, space-time trellis coded signals are first linearly transformed, and then the transformed signals are coded by using the Alamouti space-time block code. A new design criterion is proposed. It is shown that the ASTTCs can achieve not only the full diversity order but also a significant coding gain determined by the minimum weighted code distance (MWCD). Based on this design criterion, a new 4-state code is derived by a systematic code search. Simulation results show that the new ASTTC is superior by about 1.7 dB to the TSC (TarokhSeshadri-Calderbank) code at the frame error rate (FER) of 1.0e-2 over quasi-static fading channels.