Concatenated Space-time Codes for Quasi-static Fading Channels

Mr. Vivek Gulati

Ph.D. Thesis Advisor: Prof. Krishna Narayanan

Electrical and Computer Engineering
Texas A&M University

Friday, October 11th, 3:00 PM, ENS 637

vivekgu@ee.tamu.edu


Abstract

Capacity results for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) quasi-static fading channels (QSFC) indicate significant gains over single-input single-output channels. However, these results assume infinitely long Gaussian i.i.d. inputs, leaving open the question of practical coding schemes. We address some of these issues in this talk by considering a concatenation of an outer code with an inner space-time code. This perspective encompasses three different coding schemes obtained by changing the inner code to a serial-to-parallel converter (viz. direct transmission), an orthogonal space-time block code (o-STBC) or a space-time trellis code (STTC). For each of these schemes, we compute the constrained modulation outage information rate. The capacity results show that for very low rates, the space-time block codes are ideally suited. For higher rates, the trellis codes have an information rate higher than both the block codes and the direct transmission scheme. Finally, there is a range of rates unachievable by both the block codes and the trellis codes so that direct transmission is the only available option among these three choices. We then look at the design of appropriate outer codes that enable us to approach these information rates. For the direct transmission scheme, low-density parity check (LDPC) codes can be designed to give a good performance. The orthogonal space-time block codes convert the channel into an instantaneous AWGN channel and so codes that achieve capacity on AWGN channels are capacity approaching for the MIMO system as well. The use of recursive space-time trellis codes with outer convolutional or product codes results in a serial concatenation system that performs close to capacity over a range of rates.

Biography

Vivek Gulati received his B.Tech.(H) degree in Electronics and Electrical Communications from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1999. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Vivek's research interests include space-time codes, iteratively decodable codes and wireless networks.


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