MIMO iterative decoding of serial concatenation using space-time trellis codes

A multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) iterative decoding structure of serial concatenated codes with space-time trellis code (STTC) as outer coder and rate-1 recursive convolutional encoders as inner code is proposed. To both preserve the full diversity gain of space-time code and achieve additional coding gain, the proposed MIMO iterative decoder decodes jointly the received symbol streams from all the transmit antennas. The bit error rate simulation of four-state STTC employing the proposed scheme shows additional 3 dB coding gain without reducing code rate compared to that achievable by STTC alone.