Punctured space time turbo trellis codes: rate adaptation and optimisation issues

We consider the use of puncturing under the scope of space time turbo trellis codes. On one hand we consider the use of puncturing as a simple mechanism to allow varying the transmission rate, investigating the performance improvement/degradation when decreasing/increasing the spectral efficiency of the code. Then, we focus on the application of the EXIT chart technique to analyse the effect of puncturing on the code performance, and propose guidelines for the design of most suitable puncturing schemes.