International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology

Volume No.5 Issue No.1, pp: 88-93

ISSN:2277-1581
01 Jan.2016

Performance Analysis of Weighted Space Time Trellis Codes

Ankita Gupta1, Sonu Lal Sinha2
ECE Department, IES College Bhopal.
ankitagupta2411@gmail.com1, sonulal2009@gmail.com2
Abstract: Wireless communications have been developed
widely and rapidly in the modern world especially during the
last decade. Recent advances in wireless communication
systems have increased the throughput over wireless channels.
The reliability of wireless communication has also been
increased. But still the bandwidth and spectral availability
demands are endless. The need to achieve reliable wireless
systems with high spectral efficiency, low complexity and good
error performance results in continued research in this field.
The research in the field of space-time coding and multipleinput multiple-output systems has acquired a great interest in
recent years.
One of the major problems that wireless communication
systems face is multipath fading.Diversity is often used to
overcome this problem. There are three kinds of diversity spatial, time and frequency diversity. Space-time trellis coding
(STTC) is a technique that can be used to improve the
performance of mobile communications systems over fading
channels. It is a combination of space and time diversity. In
this paper, well review about STTC and different diversity
schemes.
Keywords: Space Time Trellis Codes, Fading, Diversity.
1.

Introduction

Now a day, third generation (3G) mobile communication

systems have become popular all around the world. However, its
services cannot provide a very big dynamic range of data rates,
nor can it meet the requirements of a variety of business types.
Besides, voice transportation in 3G still relies on circuit
switching technology, which is the same method as used in
second-generation (2G) communication systems, rather than
pure Internet Protocol (IP) approach. Thus, based on
consideration listed above, many countries have already carried
out research on the next completely evolutionary fourth
generation (4G) communication systems which provide a
comprehensive and secure IP solution where voice, data, and
multimedia can be offered to users at "anytime, anywhere" with
higher data rates than previous generations. Since bandwidth
resource in 4G mobile communications is still scarce, in order to
improve spectrum efficiency and achieve as high as 100Mbps
wireless transmission rate, it requires more advanced techniques
to be employed. The limitation of modulation schemes in
existing communication systems has become an obstruction in
further increasing the data rate. Hence, next generation mobile
communication systems need more sophisticated modulation
scheme and information transmission structure. Multiple input
multiple output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM) have therefore been adopted due to their
superior performance. They promise to become key high-speed
doi : 10.17950/ijset/v5s1/119

wireless communication technologies and combining them can

provide wireless industry evolution from 3G to 4G system.
2. Literature Survey
In 1873, Heinrich Hertz clarified and expanded the
electromagnetic theory that had been developed by Maxwell and
demonstrated the existence of radio waves. Through
experimentation, he proved that transverse free space
electromagnetic waves can travel over some distance. Hertz
measured Maxwells waves and demonstrated that the velocity
of radio waves was equal to the velocity of light and that they
possess many other properties of light. The electric field
intensity and polarity was also measured by Hertz. In bulk, his
work explained reflection, refraction, polarization, interference,
and velocity of electric waves. The work of Maxwell and Hertz
ignited the era of wireless communication. With the discovery
that electromagnetic waves are propagated at the speed of light,
things got underway to find a method for transferring
information across those waves. The first communication
system based on these principles was built in 1894 by Oliver
Lodge. The transmission distance of this system was only 150
meters. It was not until the late 19th century when an Italian
electrical engineer, Guglielmo Marconi [4], successfully
transmitted the first wireless signal over a distance of one and a
half miles. Marconi used electromagnetic waves at frequencies
near those of radio frequencies to transmit and receive the
signals. On December 12, 1901, Marconi successfully
transmitted the first transatlantic wireless signal from Poldhu,
Cornwall, to St. John's, Newfoundland, spanning a distance of
2100 miles. This event sparked a global interest in wireless
communication and initiated an era of invention that would see
the creation of radio, radar, and other innovations. In 1906,
Reginald Fessenden used a form of amplitude modulation,
similar to what is used today, to translate signals to a higher
frequency and thus circumvent the propagation limitations
observed by Hertz at low frequencies. He managed to build the
first system that could transmit voice and music [2]. In 1876,
Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. The invention of
the diode by Fleming in 1904 and the triode by Lee de Forest in
1906 made possible rapid development of long-distance (radio)
telephony. John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain
invented the transistor which later led to the development of the
integrated circuits and paved the way for miniaturization of
electronic systems. With the advent of such technologies the
development of wireless phones began in the 1940s in America.
However, it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that cell phones
began to expand as a substantial force in the global market. As
the number of cell phone users grew from
around 50 thousand in the 1940s to over 1.4 million by the
1960s, companies began to have more interest in this market.
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With the advent of computers and digital signal processing in the
1960's and 1970's, studies in information theory proved
incredibly fruitful. Utilizing Marconi's revolutionary discovery
and the technological advancements of the past fifty years,
cellular telephone networks flourished in the late Twentieth
Century. Now, engineers seek to transmit not only voice, but
also immense quantities of information over wireless networks.
Along with mobile phones the development of wireless internet
has also been prominent in the recent decade. Multiple-input and
multiple-output, or MIMO, uses multiple antennas at both the
transmitter and receiver to improve communication
performance. MIMO technology has attracted attention in
wireless communications, because it offers significant increases
in data throughput and link range without additional bandwidth
or increased transmit power. It achieves this goal by spreading
the same total transmit power over the antennas to achieve an
array gain that improves the spectral efficiency (more bits per
second per hertz of bandwidth) or to achieve a diversity gain that
improves the link reliability (reduced fading). MIMO schemes
that assume the channel knowledge is only available at the
receiver have in particular attracted a lot of research attention.
MIMO modulation schemes with receive-only channel
knowledge are mainly of two types, diversity systems and spatial
multiplexing systems. Diversity modulation, or space time
coding. The space-time coding work began with the 1994 paper
by Wittenben , which proposes a system using transmit diversity
and coding techniques, followed by the groundbreaking paper by
Tarokh, Seshadri and Calderbank in 1998 in which they stated
the fundamental theory of space-time coding and introduce the
first true space-time codes, namely space-time trellis codes
(STTCs). This paper was followed by Alamoutis paper , which
led to the development of what are now known as space-time
block codes (STBCs). Space-time coding (STC) [12, 14]
exploits the diversity provided by the MIMO channel in both
space (antenna) and time domains, thus significantly increasing
the system capacity as well as improving the reliability of the
wireless link. The spatial-temporal correlation is then used to
exploit the scattering environment and minimize transmission
errors at the receiver. STC can achieve transmit diversity and
coding gain compared to spatially uncoded systems without
sacrificing bandwidth [14].
STBCs and STTCs can be
considered to be the two main classes of space-time codes. In
this thesis we focus on STTCs [12]. STTC is a class of signaling
techniques that combine the design of the channel code with
transmit and optionally receive antenna diversity. In addition to
the diversity advantage, a certain amount of coding gain can be
achieved by a well-designed STTC. Code design criteria for
STTC are based upon upper bounds on the pair-wise error
probability. The design criteria are the rank criterion,
corresponding tomaximization of diversity advantage and the
determinant criterion, corresponding to maximization of coding
gain. STTCs use a trellis encoder to introduce redundancy into
the transmitted symbol stream, and to achieve coding gain. The
coding gain is dependent on the construction criteria of the code,
and on the length of the memory in the encoder. A number of
different structures have been proposed for STTCs [19].
3.

Space-Time Coding

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In traditional coding scheme, additional bits are transmitted, the

dissimilarities between transmitted symbols increase thus the
redundant information can help the receiver to detect and correct
a certain transmission errors. The overhead to transmit extra bits
or symbols are paid as price. Optimal code designs always
search the best trade-o between error detection and
transmission eciency. Convolution code and block code are
two most popular coding schemes. Tradition coding schemes
only add redundant bits or symbols in one dimension since there
is only one transmitter, however, in MIMO system, since
redundant bits or symbols need to be transmitted in both
temporal and space domain, a new coding scheme is required. a
coding method to map binary information bits to a matrix of
modulated symbol matrix. Redundancy is applied by
transmitting different versions of the same symbol in different
time slots or from different transmitters. The purpose of coding
is to maximize the distance between different symbol matrices
such that the probability of transmission errors decreases by
transmitting redundant symbols. There are many ways to dene
the distance and several indices to evaluate the transmission
errors which determine different coding design criteria. To
further the discussion in more technical detail, a universal space
time code is considered (without any special characteristics
assumed).
4.

Space Time Trellis Code

In Tarokh et al. derived the design criteria for STTCs over

slow frequency non-selective fading channels. The design
criteria were shown to be determined by the distance
matrices constructed from pairs of distinct code-words.
The minimum rank of the distance matrices was used to
determine the diversity gain, and the minimum distance of
the distance matrices was used to determine the coding
gain. The system model for STTC modulation is shown in
Figure 1.

Figure 1. Space Time Trellis Code Model

5.1 Code Construction
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STTCs can be represented and analyzed in their trellis

form or by their generator matrix, G. For example, consider
the 4PSK signal constellation shown in Figure 2, where the
signal points are labeled as 0, 1, 2, and 3.

Figure 4. 4-State, PSK Encoder Structure

Figure 2. 4PSK Signal Constellation

Figure 3. 4 State, PSK Trellis Diagram

The input signal can take on any value from the signal
constellation (in this case 0, 1, 2, or 3); they are shown on the
trellis diagram on the transition branches. In general, for each
state, the first transition branch to state 0 results from
input 0, the second transition branch to state 1 results from
input 1, and so on. The output depends on the input and on
the current state. The states are labeled on the right. The labels
on the left of the trellis represent the possible outputs from that
state. The leftmost output is assumed to be the output for
the first trellis branch for that particular state, and the
second leftmost label is assumed to be the output for the
second trellis branch for the same state, and so on. These
assumptions were verified to be correct and can be manually
traced through the encoder structure. It was proved in that
the above code provides a diversity gain of 2 (assuming one
receive antenna), and has a minimum determinant of 2.The
encoder structure for the 4PSK scheme with two transmit
antennas and one receive antenna is shown in Figure 4.

5.

Weighted Space Time Trellis Code

In fading channels we have more than one random sources, viz.,

the fading procedure what's more, the added noise. It may
happen that the receiver or the transmitter or both have
impeccable or if nothing else halfway learning of the
acknowledgment of the fading procedure, which we call the
channel-state information (CSI). CSI at the recipient can be
gotten by embeddings suitable known pilot symbols in the
transmitted signals intermittently. These permit the demodulator
to exploit its information of the channel fading gain and
consequently to change its parameters to upgrade operation.
Then again, CSI at the transmitter permits it to alter its
transmitted force, or its data rate, in order to adjust the
transmission to channel conditions. Transmitter CSI can be
transferred from the receiver through an input way, or, when
transmissions in both headings are multiplexed in time, the
signal from the inverse connection can be utilized to measure the
channel state. Transmit-force control can end up being the best
method to relieve fading. In [34] it has been demonstrated that
when flawless CSI is accessible at the transmitter, the execution
of space-time coded system can be further enhanced by utilizing
the beamforming plan which can improve the performance of a
STTC system by weighting the transmitted signals taking into
account the accessible channel data In this theory work, we
introduce the configuration of the consolidated MLSTTCs [33]
and beamforming [34], from now on alluded to as weighted
multilevel space-time trellis codes (WMLSTTCs), over
moderate Rayleigh fading channel, when impeccable CSI is
accessible at the transmitter. By expecting immaculate CSI at the
transmitter, we can utilize the data to enhance the performance
of error by setting the sign force on distinctive reception
apparatuses in an unexpected way (in view of the channel),
offering them some assistance with being simpler to identify in
the receiver. We depict the general structure and logical model
in this part.
5.1 System Model
We consider a WMLSTTC framework as appeared in Fig. 5.1,
with nT radio transmit antenna nR receive antennas. The symbol

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transmitted at time t by the ith transmit radio antenna is meant
by cti, 1 i nT. We assume that the channel shows a quasi
static frequency flat Rayleigh fading over the duration of the
frame. It is consistent more than one frame and shifts
autonomously between frames. We accept impeccable CSI is
accessible at the recipient and the transmitter both. The received
signal at time t, at the jth receive antenna is a noisy superposition
of freely Rayleigh faded adaptations of the nT transmittedsignals
and is signified by rtj , 1 j nR. The discrete complex
baseband yield of the jth receive antenna at time t is given by,

= =1
, +
1
where , is the gain of the path between the ith transmit and jth

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weighting matrix into account the CSI input from the receiver.
The weighted signal transmitted at time t, indicated by

= (1 , 2 , 3 , ) =
(11,22,33,) 3
where, T implies the transpose of a matrix, , 1 i n , is
signl coded by the multilevel STTC, is the weighting
coefficient of signal.
5.3 Detection/Decoding
Multi-stage decoder with L stages is utilized to decode the
information received, encoded by an Llevel WMLSTTC, as
appeared in Fig. 5.1. The decoder begins by interpreting the
yield of the to begin with part code. The assessed estimations of
xt(1), xt(1) are then gone to the following decoding stage and
are utilized to interpret the estimations of xt(L-1) and so on. The
final phase of the decoder uses the evaluations acquired from
levels 1 to L 1.The received signal at the jth received antenna
at time t is given by,

= =1 =1
, () () +
4

receiving antennas and is the associated noise with the jth

receiving antenna at time t. The gain of the path , are
displayed as tests of free complex Gaussian arbitrary variables
with zero mean and per dimension variance. The quantities of
noise are tests of autonomous complex Gaussian random
variables with zero mean and N0 /2 variance per dimension.

6.

The Viterbi calculation is then used to decode the way with the
most minimal gathered metric.
Performance Analysis
The performance analysis of weighted space time trellis code is
done after taking the consideration of 4 PSK 4 States & 8 PSK 8
States method having 2x1 & 2x2 antenna configuration in each
case. In each method data bits are transmitted in 200 frames with
130 symbols per frame using rank and determinant criterion.
Following is the result in tabular form which shows the different
satisfactory result of bit error rate.
S.No.
1
2
3
4

Figure 5. General structure of a WMLSTTC system.

In matrix form, (5.1) can be expressed,

Method
4 PSK using 2 x 1 Antenna
4 PSK using 2 x 2 Antenna
8 PSK using 2 x 1 Antenna
8 PSK using 2 x 2 Antenna

BER
0.0374
0.003
0.1167
0.012

Table 1. Result based on Rank & Determinant Criterion

7.

on the other hand, in minimized form

rt=HtQt+t

Experimental Result

where, = (1 , 2 , 3 , ) , = (1 , 2 , 3 , ) ,

= (1 , 2 , 3 , ) & Ht is the nR x nT channel matrix

whose j,i-th entry is represented by ,
5.2 WMLSTTC Encoder
WMLSTTC encoder utilizes the MLSTTC encoder depicted in
section 4, trailed by weighting as appeared in Fig. 5.1. The data
bits encoded by the MLSTTC encoder are weighted by the
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Figure 6. BER using 4 PSK 4 States WSTTC using 2 x1

Antenna
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transmitted in 200 frames with 130 symbols per frame using

rank and determinant criterion. The results are found satisfactory
and as we can observe that less constellation points 4 PSK
WSTTC are showing less error where as more constellation
points 8 PSK WSTTC are showing more error, also we have
minutely observed the antenna configuration too such that if we
are increasing the receiving antennas, error is less in both the
cases.
9. References

Figure 7. BER using 4 PSK 4 States WSTTC using 2 x2

Antenna

Figure 8. BER using 8 PSK 8 States WSTTC using 2 x1

Antenna

Figure 9. BER using 8 PSK 8 States WSTTC using 2 x2

Antenna
8. Conclusion
In this paper, we have computed the bit error rate of weighted
space time trellis code after taking the consideration of 4 PSK 4
States & 8 PSK 8 States method having 2x1 & 2x2 antenna
configuration in each case. In each method data bits are
doi : 10.17950/ijset/v5s1/119

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