Analytical tools for space-time codes over quasi-static fading channels

This paper proposes effective ways to reduce the complexity of computing the distance spectrum of space-time trellis codes. First the notion of Voronoi neighborhood is extended to space-time trellis codes. Next, only simple error events are used, then a stack algorithm is used to further reduce complexity. The obtained reduced spectra are then used in conjunction with some previously proposed upper bounds to predict the performance of some published codes over quasi-static fading channels. Of interest are published space-time codes for which only tentative performance characterization has been proposed so far. The numerical results show that indeed the performance of these codes only depends on their distance spectrum and that remarkably tight bounds can be obtained.