Achieving MIMO channel capacity using multirate layered space-time coding architectures

We propose a multirate diagonal space-time interleaved (DSTI) coded modulation system with a low complexity linear successive decoding and interference cancellation receiver for quasi-static Rayleigh fading multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels. In comparison with the traditional BLAST architecture, the proposed multirate DSTI system has more practical virtues while achieving near capacity performance for sufficiently large multiple antennas. The key findings of this paper are: (i) the derivation of the probability density functions of per-layer mutual informations, which can be used to estimate per-layer rates, and (ii) the design of multirate DSTI system using punctured turbo codes. Simulation results show significant gains in packet error-rate (PER) performances.