Joint channel estimation and decoding of space-time trellis codes

In this paper, we discuss the application of sequential importance sampling (SIS) to joint channel estimation and decoding of space-time trellis codes (STTCs). First, we present the dynamic state space model (DSSM) of the system, and then we briefly review the theory of SIS. A special case of SIS, a combination of SIS and Kalman filtering, is shown through simulations to be a viable approach to the problem which addresses time-varying flat-fading environments. Our solution is admissible if phase ambiguity can be avoided. We show that the phase ambiguity can be reduced by carefully designing the STTC modulation constellations.