A Novel Unequal-Error-Protected STBC Design for Multimedia Transmission

A new unequal-error-protected space-time block code (UEP-STBC) is designed in this paper for multimedia transmission systems deployed with multiple antennas. Traditionally, a space-time code is designed to support a single information stream aiming to achieve a point on the fundamental rate versus diversity tradeoff curve, while this proposed class of codes has the capability of transmitting different performed symbols from different layers within the same codeword. The UEP-STBC, whose symbols belong to different orthogonal layers without interference, is fit for the systems using scalable video coding (SVC) as the source coding. The design covers the cases of arbitrary number of transmit antennas. The simulation results demonstrate the performance advantage and coverage enhancement of the proposed codes in multimedia transmission over conventional codes.