On the Impact of the Radio Channel on the Performance of Space-Time Bit-Interleaved Coded OFDM Systems

This paper reports theoretical and practical remarks useful for the analysis of space-time bit-interleaved coded OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) modulated transceivers. The system performance is derived by means of pairwise error probability pointing out the achievable diversity order and the coding gain for channels with both time and space correlations. The tradeoff between available and exploitable diversities in time, frequency and space domains is emphasized. For a given transmitter the expected coding gain can be deduced either from the eigenvalue spread or from a full analysis of the autocorrelation matrix of the composite radio channel. Simulation results that corroborate this approach are reported taking into account for different transmission scenarios and outer codes.