Performance analysis of space-time trellis codes over rapid Rayleigh fading channels with channel estimation

We present a new, explicit pairwise error probabflitv (PEP) upperbound for space-time trellis codes over rapid, nonselective, Rayleigh fading channels with imperfect channel state information (CSI). Pilot-symbol-assisted-modulation is used for estimation of the channel fading gains. A maximum likelihood (ML) receiver based on the imperfect CSI is derived. The ML receiver has a simple form for M-ary phase shift keying modulation. With the PEP upperbound obtained, a tight, low-complexity, upperbound on the bit error probability is presented using the dominant error events approach. The maximum length of the dominant error events considered increases with the number of states of the codes. Simulation results are obtained to validate our analysis.