Signal design and receiver dimensioning for space-time Viterbi equalisation

Abstract

Space-time Viterbi equalisation for wireless communication has received much interest recently. The authors consider the associated signal and receiver design for improved transmission performance at high baud rates. Three techniques are proposed; two concern signal design and one concerns receiver design. First, special kinds of sequences called the min-norm training sequences are used for channel estimation. These sequences can minimise the mean-square estimation error in uncorrelated AWGN environments. Secondly, the authors consider using unequal power levels for the training signal and the data signal, with a higher power level for the former. They derive a mathematical expression for the optimal power ratio. Thirdly, a channel estimation method using reduced channel length is proposed. This method can reduce the channel estimation error in low SNR environments. Small-scale Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to investigate the performance gain of these techniques in wireless transmission. The results show varying degrees of advantage under different conditions.