A Space-Time Trellis Code Design Method for OFDM Systems

We introduce a new design method for space-time trelliscodes (STTC's) in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing(OFDM) systems with frequency-selective fading. First, byanalyzing the pairwise error probability (PEP), we conclude thatlarge effective length and random interleaving are twocritical principles in designing robust space-time codes (STC's)for OFDM systems. Then, based on the analogy between the proposedSTC design principles for multiple-antenna OFDM systems and thetrellis-coded modulation (TCM) code design criteria forsingle-antenna flat-fading channels, we develop a new STTC designmethod. At each trellis stage, this method converts the singleoutput code symbol of a traditional TCM code into several STTCcode symbols, which are to be simultaneously transmitted frommultiple transmitter-antennas, and hence results in a new class ofSTTC's. In this way, the effective lengths that have beenoptimized for traditional TCM codes are preserved in the resultingSTTC's; together with a random interleaver, the proposed new classof STTC's can robustly and efficiently exploit both the spatialand the frequency-selective fading diversity resources inmultiple-antenna OFDM systems. Finally, the excellent performanceof the proposed STTC's are demonstrated through computersimulations.