Noncoherent detection of orthogonal modulation combined with Alamouti space-time coding

In this paper, we investigate the error probability performance of noncoherently detected orthogonal modulation combined with Alamouti space-time block coding. We find that there are two types of pair-wise error probabilities that characterize the performance. We employ methods that allow a direct evaluation of exact, closed-form expressions for these error probabilities. Theoretical as well as numerical results show that noncoherent orthogonal modulation combined with space-time block coding (STBC) achieves full spatial diversity. We derive an expression for approximate average bit error probability for M-ary orthogonal signaling that allows one to show the tradeoff between increased rate and performance degradation.