On the issue of decoupled decoding of codes derived from quaternion orthogonal designs

Quaternion orthogonal designs (QODs) have been previously introduced as a basis for orthogonal space-time polarization block codes (OSTPBCs). This note will serve to correct statements concerning the optimality of a decoupled maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding algorithm. It will be shown that when compared to coupled decoding, the decoupled decoding is only optimal in certain cases. This raises several open problems concerning the decoding of OSTPBCs.