Performance Analysis of Alamouti Space-Time Block Code Over Time-Selective Fading Channels

Alamouti orthogonal space-time block code (Alamouti in IEEE J Sel Areas Commun 16(8):1451-1458, 1998) has been applied widely in wireless communication, e.g., IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard. In this paper, theoretical analysis of symbol error rate performance for Alamouti orthogonal space-time block code (AOSTBC) over time-selective fading channels with a zero-forcing linear receiver is derived. Firstly, a closed-form expression (i.e., not in integral form) is derived for the average symbol pair-wise error probability (SPEP) in time-selective frequency-nonselective independent identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels. Then, the SPEP is used to derive a tight upper bound (UB) for the symbol-error rate (SER) of AOSTBC via establishing algorithmic Bonferroni-type upper bound. Extensive simulation results show that the curves for the UB coincide with the simulated SER curves for various antenna configurations even at very low signal-to-noise ratio regimes. The UB thus can be used to accurately predict the performance of AOSTBC code over time-selective fading channels when a zero-forcing receiver is used.