Concatenated space-time codes for quasi-static fading channels: constrained capacity and code design

Abstract— The problem of designing codes with close-tocapacity performance on the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) quasi-static fading channel (QSFC) is addressed. We consider three different coding schemes – namely, direct transmission of random-like codes, concatenation with linear processing orthogonal space-time block codes (o-STBC) and concatenation with space-time trellis codes (STTC). The constrained modulation outage capacity of each of these schemes is computed. It is shown how Low-density Parity Check (LDPC) codes may be used to approach capacity in these cases. For the STTC, the serial concatenation scheme of [1] turns out to have close to capacity performance.