Space-time trellis codes over rapid rayleigh fading channels with channel estimation-part ii: performance analysis and code design for non-identical channels

We consider the maximum likelihood (ML) receiver design, performance analysis and code design for space-time trellis codes (STTC) over non-identical, rapid fading channels with imperfect channel state information (CSI). The exact pairwise error probability (PEP) and PEP bounds for the ML receiver are obtained. A new code design criterion exploiting the statistical information of the channel estimates is proposed, which can minimize the performance loss caused by channel estimation error. New codes are obtained via an iterative search algorithm with reduced complexity. Under actual channel estimation conditions, our codes perform better than the existing codes in the literature which are designed on the assumption of identical channels, and perfect CSI at the receiver. More performance gain can be achieved by our codes when the degree of imbalance among the links is higher.