A Symbol-by-Symbol Channel Estimation Receiver for Space-Time Block Coded Systems and its Performance Analysis on the Nonselective Rayleigh Fading Channel

We present a symbol-by-symbol channel estimation receiver for an orthogonal space-time block coded system, and derive its analytical performance on a slow, nonselective, Rayleigh fading channel. Exact, closed-form expressions for its bit error probability (BEP) performance for M-ary phase shift-keying modulations are obtained, which enable us to theoretically predict the actual performance achievable under practical conditions with channel estimation error. Our BEP expressions show explicitly the dependence of BEP on the mean square error of the channel estimates, which in turn depend on the channel fading model and the channel estimator used. Tight upper bounds are presented that show more clearly the dependence of the BEP on various system parameters. Simulation results using various fading models are obtained to demonstrate the validity of the analysis.