Single-block coded modulation for MINO systems

This paper introduces a new class of space-time codes that achieve coding gain without a trellis or any form of inter-block dependency. The construction of the new codes starts from an existing (parent) space-time block code (STBC). Then by increasing the constellation size followed by expurgation of the expanded codebook, a better code is obtained at the original transmission rate. This method can be applied to a wide variety of space-time block codes, including orthogonal codes and quasi-orthogonal codes. A multi-stage design algorithm is presented, and for orthogonal parent codes, an efficient decoding algorithm is developed, and its decoding complexity is analyzed. Despite altering the regular structure of the orthogonal code, the decoding complexity is only affected by a constant factor.