Application of Perfect Space Time Codes: PEP Bounds and Some Practical Insights

The design of perfect space time codes constructed from cyclic division algebra (CDA) on the quasi-static MIMO channel has received lots of attention in industry over the last few years. However, the recent standards that use multiple antennas terminals such as IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.16e or LTE are based on more realistic assumptions involving the use of outer codes and multi-taps channels. In this paper, the question regarding the utility of using a high dimensional modulation schemes such as space time codes in a standard context is addressed. For this, we evaluate the performance of the perfect space time codes in term of an upper-bound on the pairwise error probability, and we compare it to the one of simple spatial division multiplexing (SDM) schemes. Finally, simulation results considered in the context of IEEE 802.11n show that the 2 x 2 MIMO perfect code, i.e. the golden code performs relatively similarly as the SDM scheme in the presence of a good outer code.