Space Time State Trellis Codes for MIMO Systems Using Reconfigurable Antennas

We present a novel class of space time trellis codes based on super quasi-orthogonal space time codes for a reconfigurable antenna system. We call them space time state trellis codes (STSTCs). We design for 4 trellis states and both 2 and 4 branch trellis structures for BPSK and QPSK constellations. The proposed codes take advantage of the additional degrees of diversity offered by reconfigurable antennas and changing propagation states. They achieve full rate, full diversity and high coding gain. Simulation results demonstrate their good performance. STSTCs achieve the diversity order expected of four transmit antennas while using only two reconfigurable transmit antennas. Our code out performs the existing super orthogonal space time trellis code, which fails to achieve full diversity in a reconfigurable antenna system. The proposed 4 trellis state STSTC is designed based on the following performance criteria: minimum coding gain distance of the minimum return path (CGD MRP), performance factor (PF), rank of the partial valid path (RPVP) on top of traditional minimum coding gain distance of parallel path (CGD PP). We show through analysis and simulations that minimum CGD PP is not a sufficient criteria and that additional performance gains are provided by considering the CGD MRP.