Makings of the 4 × 4 space-time block code of choice

Abstract

We present a new 4×4 Hadamard-precoded Quasi-Orthogonal Space-Time Block Code (QO-STBC) that enables reliability-based prioritized symbol detection using linear filters. Approximate block-error-rate analysis is carried out and used to optimize the code rotation angles. For benchmarking purposes, the maximum-likelihood (ML) code detector is also derived with complexity of the order of joint two-real-symbol decoding. Numerical and simulation studies compare linear filter decoding against ML decoding.