On pairwise error probability of space-time codes

Abstract

The authors consider a space-time coded system with Q transmit antennas and P receive antennas and assume under the quasi-static Rayleigh fading assumption that the channel is fixed for a duration of M symbol transmissions. Let S be a (Q/spl times/M) space-time code. Given S /spl isin/ S is the transmitted codeword, the received signal is given by Y=/spl radic//spl rho//sub t/HS + N, where /spl rho//sub t/=/spl rho//Q, with /spl rho/ being the SNR. The components n/sub p,m,/ h/sub p,q/ of the noise matrix N and the (P/spl times/Q) channel fading-coefficient matrix H respectively, are independent, identically-distributed, zero-mean, complex Gaussian random variables.