On the performance of space-time turbo codes

Turbo codes have closed the gap between the theoretical capacity limits and the practically achievable information rates for Gaussian single-input and single-output channels [1]. The new challenge is to close this gap for more powerful communications systems such as multi-element antenna systems. In this paper, we investigate the performance of a space-time turbo code (STTC) with two transmit and two receive antennas operating at various information rates (adaptive rates) with medium-to-large block sizes, which is particularly suitable for packet oriented wireless multimedia communications. In particular, we investigate the bit error-ratio and packet error-ratio performances with random and designed interleavers at various information rates obtained by rate compatible punctured space-time turbo codes.