On space-time convolutional codes for PSK modulation

Space-time convolutional codes have been shown to provide improved performance for high data rate transmission over fading channels through combined space diversity and coding gain. However, there are still some questions on how to design the codes in binary or discrete domain to achieve these gains in the complex domain of baseband-modulated signals. In this paper, we first consider the effect of minimum distance in the space-time codes, then propose a new efficient design method which is based on the upper and lower bounds of coding gain. Simulation result shows that the new approach allows a fast search for optimal space-time convolutional codes for many practical problems.