Space-time codes for wireless communication

With an increasing demand for high data rate, there has been a lot of research in the field of wireless communication. This paper deals with the fundamentals of space-time coding for wireless communication systems. A well-known technique known as Space]Time Coding has been adopted in the systems using multiple antennas for high speed and reliable communication. The basic idea of space-time coding deals with the designing of two-dimensional signal matrix that is to be transmitted over an interval of time from a number of transmitting antennas. High data rate and improved bit error performance can be achieved by exploiting diversity in the spatial dimensions by designing appropriate signal structure. Space-Time Block Coding is a MIMO transmit strategy which exploits transmit diversity and high reliability. We analyze the basic design structure of the space- time codes and summarize their relative performances