Improved horizontal coding scheme for V-BLAST system with block-fading channel

In BLAST (Bell lab´s layered space time) systems, very high spectral efficiency can be achieved by employing antenna array at both transmitter and receiver sides. Coding for such a system is an interesting topic. In this paper, we further study the detection and decoding performance with horizontal coding structure. Our main interest is in the performance and complexity trade-offs involved in the design of coding/decoding and signal detection algorithms. We show that unequal protection capability codes may be used in different layers to improve the BLER (block error rate) without additional complexity. Simulation results show that the same performance as hard-decision iterative detection is obtained. Furthermore, through a CRC (cyclic redundancy check), the sphere decoding is used to refine the detection result. Therefore, the performance is significantly improved with affordable computational complexity.