Differential Space Time Block Codes using QAM
for Four Transmit Antennas
Seung Hoon Nam† , Chan-Soo Hwang† , Jaehak Chung† and Vahid Tarokh‡
† i-Networking
Lab., Samsung AIT P.O. Box 111, Suwon, S. Korea, email: seunghoon.nam@samsung.com
‡ DEAS, 33 Oxford Street, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA, e-mail: vahid@deas.harvard.edu
Abstract— We develop differential space time block codes
(STBC) using non-constant modulus constellations for four trans-
mit antennas. The proposed method improves on the conventional
differential STBC techniques because of the larger minimum dis-
tances of non-constant modulus constellations. The transmitted
signals are modulated using pulse amplitude modulation (PAM).
Encoding is similar to that of the conventional differential STBC,
while the receiver is different. The signal at the receiver is
divided by the estimated channel power and then decoded using a
conventional QAM decoder which treats pairs of transmited PAM
symbols transmitted from two transmit antennas as one QAM
symbol. For transmission rates greater than 2 bits/channel use,
the proposed method outperforms the conventional differential
STBC.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Space-time block coding (STBC) is an effective method of
exploiting the advantage of multi-input multi-output (MIMO)
systems and is known to provide good performance with sim-
ple decoding schemes over slow fading channels[1], [2], [3].
Typically in STBC, channel state information (CSI) is assumed
to be available at the receiver and in practice is estimated using
training symbols. In some occasions, a scheme without CSI at
the receiver may also be desirable as the removal of channel
estimation process may reduce both the cost and complexity
of the receiver. This may be in particular true for fast fading
channels, as the channel estimation overhead may be excessive
under this scenario. Differential detection of STBC was first
studied by Tarokh and Jafarkhani for two transmit antennas
and then extended to higher number of transmit antennas
[4], [5]. The proposed schemes have approximately 3 dB
performance loss compared to coherent STBC, while having
similar decoding complexity. Differential STBC, as proposed
in the above literature, may only be employed in conjunction
with constant modulus constellations. This can have significant
loss for constellations with large number of elements. In
addressing this issue, the authors [6] developed a differential
STBC using QAM constellations that can be employed for two
transmit antennas.
In this work, we consider transmission using four transmit
antennas. Differential STBC scheme for QAM constellations
do not simply extend to this scenario, thus we propose a new
differential STBC technique. For the new scheme, binary data
is modulated using pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), and is
encoded in a manner similar to the conventional differential
STBC. However, the encoded symbols are normalized by the
power of previously transmitted symbols. At the receiver, the
IEEE Communications Society 952
received signal is first divided by the estimated channel power
and then decoded using an a decoder which treats pairs of
transmitted PAM symbols as QAM symbols. The proposed
method improves symbol error rate (SER) performance signif-
icantly compared to the conventional methods of differential
STBC which employ PSK constellations.
II. C HANNEL M ODEL
We consider a communication link consisting of four trans-
mit and one receive antennas. The transmission is performed in
time blocks consisting of 4 consecutive transmission periods.
At the t-th period (t = 1, 2, 3, 4) of the v-th time block, four
symbols cv,t,1 · · · cv,t,4 are transmitted, one from each transmit
antenna. The received signal xv,t is modelled as
4


xv,t = hi cv,t,i + wv,t , t = 1, 2, 3, 4, (1)
i=1
where hk is the sub-channel from the k-th transmit antenna
to the receiver. The subchanels hk , k = 1, 2, 3, 4 are mod-
eled as independent samples of zero mean complex Gaus-
sian random variables with variance 0.5 per real dimension.
In our presentation of the technique, we assume that that
hk does not (significantly) vary for blocks of length two
and varies slowly with time. These quasi-static assumptions
are standard for differential techniques. The noise wv,t is
modeled as independent samples of a zero-mean complex
2
Gaussian random variable with variance σw /2 per dimension.
The transmitted symbols are normalized so as to have unit
power, i.e., E{|cv,t,1 |2 + · · · |cv,t,4 |2 } = 1 where E{·} denotes
expectation. With the normalization, the SNR at the receiver
2
becomes 1/σw . For clarity of presentation, below we will omit
subscripts v, t whenever there is no ambiguity.
III. C ONVENTIONAL D IFFERENTIAL S PACE T IME B LOCK
C ODE
For completeness, we first review a differential STBC with
four transmit antennas employing real constellations. The 4×4
real orthogonal STBC matrix used in the encoding process is
given by
 
a1 a2 a3 a4
 −a2 a1 −a4 a3 
G44 =  −a3 a4
, (2)
a1 −a2 
−a4 −a3 a2 a1
0-7803-8533-0/04/$20.00 (c) 2004 IEEE
where the i-th column denotes the transmitted signals from the where H⊥ is defined as
i-th transmit antenna and the t-th row denotes the transmitted  
h1 h2 h3 h4
signals at time t. In other words, (G44 )it corresponds to  h2
 −h1 −h4 h3 .
cv,t,i in (1). During the first transmission block, arbitrary H⊥ =  (7)
h3 h4 −h1 −h2 
symbols S1 = (s1,1 , · · · , s1,4 ) are mapped to the encoding
h4 −h3 h2 −h1
matrix replacing ai in (2) with s1,i . The symbols transmitted
at the first block carry no information and are unknown to To calculate Pv+1,i , the differential decoder utilizes the or-
the receiver. Inductively, let us assume that for v ≥ 2, the thogonal property of H⊥ and computes:
symbols Sv = (sv,1 , · · · , sv,4 ) are transmitted during the v-
th block by replacing indeterminates a1 , · · · , a4 in (2) by {X1v+1 XiH
v } = {STv+1 H⊥ HH T H
⊥ (Vi (Sv ) ) + Wi }
corresponding elements of Sv . During the v + 1-th block, four
4

bits of binary data Dv+1 arrive at the encoder. The binary data
are BPSK modulated and the modulated signals are denoted
as Pv+1 = (Pv+1,1 , · · · , Pv+1,4 ). To simplify the notation,
we define four permuted vectors of the modulated signals as
follow:
V1 (Sv ) = (sv,1 , sv,2 , sv,3 , sv,4 )T
V2 (Sv ) = (sv,2 , −sv,1 , sv,4 , −sv,3 )T
V3 (Sv ) = (sv,3 , −sv,4 , −sv,1 , sv,2 )T
V4 (Sv ) = (sv,4 , sv,3 , −sv,2 , −sv,1 )T .
Note that Vi (Sv )’s are orthogonal to each another. Then, the
modulated signals are encoded differentially as
4 multi-dimensional space. For example, 24b signal points may


Sv+1 = Pv+1,k Vk (Sv ).
k=1
In other words, the symbols transmitted at the (v +1)-th block
are given by a linear combination of the symbols at the v-
th block with the coefficients Pv+1,k carrying the transmitted
information.
Assuming that the channel coefficients remain constant
during the v-th and the v + 1-th time blocks, the received
signals can be expressed as
xv,1 = h1 sv,1 + h2 sv,2 + h3 sv,3 + h4 sv,4 + wv,1
xv,2 = −h1 sv,2 + h2 sv,1 − h3 sv,4 + h4 sv,3 + wv,2
xv,3 = −h1 sv,3 + h2 sv,4 + h3 sv,1 − h4 sv,2 + wv,3
xv,4 = −h1 sv,4 − h2 sv,3 + h3 sv,2 + h4 sv,1 + wv,4 .
To derive the decoder equation of the differential STBC
receiver, the received signals in (5) are rearranged in vector
form as follows:
X1v = (xv,1 , xv,2 , xv,3 , xv,4 )
= (sv,1 , sv,2 , sv,3 , sv,4 )H⊥ + (wv,1 , wv,2 , wv,3 , wv,4 )
2 As shown in the previous section, the differential STBC
Xv = (−xv,2 , xv,1 , xv,4 , −xv,3 )
= (sv,2 , −sv,1 , sv,4 , −sv,3 )H⊥ + (−wv,2 , wv,1 , wv,4 , −wv,3 ) where M denotes a constant modulus constellation set. There-
X3v = (−xv,3 , −xv,4 , xv,1 , xv,2 )
= (sv,3 , −sv,4 , −sv,1 , sv,2 )H⊥ + (−wv,3 , −wv,4 , wv,1 , wv,2 ) sphere with unit radius. The main motivating observation of
X4v = (−xv,4 , xv,3 , −xv,2 , xv,1 )
= (sv,4 , sv,3 , −sv,2 , −sv,1 )H⊥ + (−wv,4 , wv,3 , −wv,2 , wv,1 ), non-constant modulus constellations, e.g., PAM, in (8). If the
= |hi |2 Pv+1,i + {Wi }, (8)
i=1
where Wi denotes the noise term and {} denotes the real
part of a complex number. From (8), the receiver estimates
Pv+1,1 by employing the regular BPSK demodulator and the
binary data bits Dv+1 are recovered.
As shown above, the scheme provides simple differential
detection for the STBC using real constant modulus constel-
lations. Since each transmit antenna transmits real symbols,
(3) the only available constant modulus constellation is BPSK if
the constellation is designed independently for each transmit
antenna. In order to transmit more than 1 bits/channel use,
symbols at each antenna should be combined to form a
(4) be located on a four-dimensional hyper-sphere to transmit b
bits/channel use with four transmit antennas. However, the
design of such a multi-dimensional constellation is so com-
plicated that it is regarded as out of scope in this paper. As an
alternative, we adopt a simple sub-optimum method. First, we
merged two real dimensions from two transmit antennas, and
we employed PSK constellation regarding two independent
dimensions as real and imaginary ones. In this manner, we
can transmit b bits/channel use by employing two virtual 22b -
ary PSK for four transmit antennas.
Although the suboptimal method enables the differential
STBC to transmit more than 1 bits/channel use, this scheme
still has the SNR disadvantage due to employing PSK rather
than QAM. For example, the use of 64-PSK instead of 64-
(5) QAM incurs 9.95dB SNR loss in effective signal energy [7].
Thus, high order modulation is not desirable for the differential
STBC.
IV. D IFFERENTIAL S PACE T IME B LOCK C ODE U SING
QAM
A. Proposed method
encodes information in Pv = (Pv,1 , Pv,2 , Pv,3 , Pv,4 )T ∈ M
fore, all the elements of M are on a four-dimensional hyper-
this
4 paper 2is that the receiver only needs to know the value of
i=1 |hi | , not the values of hi individually in order to decode
4 2
(6) receiver can estimate i=1 |hi | without training symbols,

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 4
the differential STBC can even utilize non-constant modulus where the average transmit power constraint E{ i=1 |sv,i |2 }
constellations. =
1is used. The signal power of previously transmitted symbols
As in the differential STBC presented above, the trans- 4 2
i=1 |sv,i | can be estimated from the previous output of
mission is initialized by sending arbitrary symbols S1 = the decoder, or by computing
(s1,1 , s1,2 , s1,3 , s1,4 )T at the first block by replacing the in-

4
4
determinates a1 , a2 , a3 , a4 in (2) with s1,1 , s1,2 , s1,3 , s1,4 . At
{Xv1 Xv1H } = ( |hi |2 )( |sv,i |2 ) + {W  }, (13)
the (v + 1)-th block, the transmission symbols Sv+1 =
i=1 i=1
(sv+1,1 , sv+1,2 , sv+1,3 , sv+1,4 )T are encoded as follows:
where W  denotes a noise term.
4


4
Vk (Sv ) Pv+1,k Vk (Sv )
Sv+1 = Pv+1,k =  , (9) B. SER Upper Bound
|Vk (Sv )| 4 2
k=1 k=1 i=1 |sv,i | We derive an SER upper bound on the performance of the
where Pv+1,k is the PAM symbol encoding of 2b bits of 8b proposed method using the 4-PAM constellation. Note that
binary data Dv+1 . 4-PAM (virtual) 16-QAM and 8-PAM (virtual 64-QAM) can
The decoder computes be utilized in the proposed scheme to transmit respectively

2and 3 bits/channel use. We assume that the channel power
 4 4 2
4


i=1 |hi | is perfectly estimated at the receiver (The Gennie
1 1H 2
{Xv+1 Xv } = |hi | |sv,i |2 Pv+1,1 + {W1 }, (10) Bound). The mean and variance of the noise component
i=1 i=1 {W1 } in (10) can be computed to be

where the noise W1 is defined as E{{W1}} = 0

4  4 
1


W1 = (wv+1,1 wv+1,2 wv+1,3 wv+1,4 )HH T H
⊥ (Vk (Sv ) ) var{{W1}} = |hi |2 |sv,i |2 + |sv+1,i |2 σw
2
2 i=1
+ STv+1 H⊥ (wv,1 wv,2 wv,3 wv,4 )H i=1
4
+ (wv+1,1 wv+1,2 wv+1,3 wv+1,4 )(wv,1 wv,2 wv,3 wv,4 )H . + 2σw . (14)
(11) It is easy to see that the statistics of {W2 }, {W3 } and
4 {W4 } are the same as those of {W1 }. At the decoder, the
2
Assuming that i=1 |sv,i | is known at the receiver, the PAM symbols Pv,1 and Pv,2 are combined to form a virtual
PAM signal Pv+1,1 can be recovered by dividing (10) by QAM symbol. Since the average power of each PAM symbol
4 2 4 2
i=1 |hi | and i=1 |sv,i | . The
the estimated values of is 0.25, the average power of the QAM symbol is 0.5. The
symbols Pv+1,2 , Pv+1,3 and Pv+1,4 can be estimated in an corresponding noise power also doubles. Then, the SNR of
analogous manner. The binary data bits Dv+1 are recovered the received signal for the QAM symbol is approximated as
from Pv+1 . 4
0.5( i=1 |hi |2 )
Each pair of (Pv+1,1 , Pv+1,2 ) and (Pv+1,3 , Pv+1,4 ) can be re- SN RPv,1,Pv,2 ≈ , (15)
2
(1 + α)σw
garded as virtual QAM symbols, i.e., Pv+1,1 and Pv+1,3 are the
inphase components of each QAM symbols, and Pv+1,2 and where 4 2
Pv+1,4 are the quadrature components of each QAM symbols. i=1 |sv+1,i |
α≡  . (16)
Then, the QAM symbols (Pv+1,1 , Pv+1,2 ) and (Pv+1,3 , Pv+1,4 ) 4 2
i=1 |sv,i |
can be recovered from ({X1v+1 X1H 1 2H
v }, {Xv+1 Xv }) and 4 2
i=1 |sv+1,i | is the same as
1 3H 1 4H
({Xv+1 Xv }, {Xv+1 Xv }) by using ordinary QAM From (9), the distribution of
4 2
demodulator. The use of QAM notation is not imperative in that of i=1 |Pv+1,i | . Assuming the transmission rate of 2
the proposed method; however, the QAM notation is used bits/channel use, the symbol Pv+1,i is chosen from 4-PAM
for fair comparison of SER with the conventional differential constellation, and the pairs of symbols 4 (Pv+1,1 , Pv+1,2 ) form
STBC in Sec. III, in which the notion of combining the a virtual 16-QAM symbol. Then, i=1 |Pv+1,i |2 is then the
dimensions is indispensable to increase the transmission rate sum of the symbol energies of two 16-QAM points. We
over 1 bit/channel use. assume that all the elements of 16-QAM constellation are equi-
Unlike the case of the conventional differential 4 STBC, probable and that the distribution of the noise W1 in (10) is
2
the
 receiver must now estimate both i=1 |h i | and approximately Gaussian (high SNR assumption).
4 2 Because the average symbol energy of 16-QAM is normal-
i=1 |sv,i | in order to recover the QAM modulated in-
formation signal from the received signal in (10). A simple ized to be 0.5, an iapproximate upperbound on the instant
4 2
probability of symbol error Ps (e| i=1 |hi | , α) for the
channel power estimator p̂B may be derived by taking the 4 2
auto-correlation of the received signal xv,i as proposed scheme given i=1 |hi | and α is
 
4
4 4 2

|h i |
p̂B = E{x∗v,i xv,i } = |hi |2 + σw
2
i = 1, 2, 3, 4, (12) Ps (e| |hi |2 , α) ≤ 3 Q i=1
2
. (17)
i=1
10(1 + α)σw
i=1

IEEE Communications Society 954 0-7803-8533-0/04/$20.00 (c) 2004 IEEE

 0
10
proposed scheme is compared with that of the differential
STBC when the transmission rates are 2 and 3 bits/channel
use. To evaluate the influence of the channel power estimator
−1
10
p̂B on the SER, the SER of the proposed method is obtained
for various values of L. The channel power estimator p̂B in
(12) is then the time average of the received signals:
−2
10
L 4
1

∗
p̂B (v, t) =
SER

x x L . (20)
L i=1 j=1 v+i− 2 ,j v+i− 2 ,j
L

−3
10

In Fig. 2, we compare the SER of the proposed method

using channel power estimator p̂B with that of the differential
−4
10 STBC in Sec. III for M = 16, 64. We assumed that channel
coefficients remain constant during two consecutive blocks
differential
proposed
and L = 100. The SER of the proposed method with a
0 5 10 15 20 25
perfect knowledge of the channel power at the receiver is also
E /N
b o plotted. The proposed method provides a gain of 1.6 dB at
SER of 10−3 compared to that of the differential STBC for
Fig. 1. Comparison of the SER upper bounds of the proposed method and
differential STBC when 16-QAM and 16-PSK, respectively, are employed. the rate of 2 bits per channel use, i.e., 16-QAM and 16-PSK
are employed for the proposed method and the conventional
one, respectively. This result is consistent with the 2 dB gain
Provided that hi ’s are zero-mean complex Gaussian random obtained by the analytic approximate upper bound in Fig.
4
variables with variance 0.5 per dimension, i=1 |hi |2 is Chi- 1. The Eb /No performance gap between 16-PSK and 16-
square random variable with degree of freedom eight. The QAM is 4.2 dB. Since the proposed method suffers from
average probability of the symbol error is then computed Eb /No degradation due to the normalization of the transmitted
by integrating the error probability in (17) over the fading symbol by the power of the previous symbol, about 2.6 dB
distribution and summing it over the distribution of α. Eb /No advantage over 16-PSK is vanished. In addition, the

 ∞   channel power estimation induces a further 0.3 dB Eb /No loss.
1 x
Ps (e) ≤ Pα (α) Q 2
x3 e−x dx. In conclusion, the proposed method with the channel power
α 0 2 10(1 + α)σ w
estimation p̂B requires 1.3 dB less energy to achieve the same
(18)
SER. As higher order modulations are employed, the Eb /No
A closed-form expression for the right side of (18) is [8]
 gain of the proposed method increases. For example, the
3
1 3
Ps (e) ≤ Pα (α) 1−(2A + 1)− 2 −A(2A + 1)− 2 proposed method attains 6.2 dB power gains for 3 bits/channel
2 α use assuming that the channel power is perfectly known at the
3 5 5 7
 receiver. The Eb /No penalty due to the use of channel power
− A2 (2A + 1)− 2 − A3 (2A + 1)− 2 , (19)
2 2 estimation is 0.6 dB.
4 Next, we examine the effect of the number of symbols L
where A ≡ 5( i=1 |hi | )(SN RPv,1,Pv,2 )−1 . At high SNR,
2
used for the estimation on the SER. In Fig. 3, the SERs of the
the SER of the proposed method in Rayleigh fading channel
proposed method employing 16-QAM are displayed as L is
is asymptotically proportional to (SN RPv,1,Pv,2 )−4 , where
varied from 10 to 100. The SER increases as L decreases. The
we can observe that the proposed method attains four level
performance degradation due to the channel power estimation
diversity. The probability of the symbol error of the differen-
exceeds 1 dB when L ≤ 25. However, the SER performance
tial STBC scheme with PSK modulation in Rayleigh fading
of the proposed method using the channel power estimator p̂B
channel can be calculated in a similar manner by integrating
is almost the same as that assuming a perfect knowledge of
Q-function over Chi-square distribution.
p at the receiver when L ≥ 50 (see Fig. 3). The Eb /No loss
Figure 1 shows the upper bound of the SER performance
due to the use of the channel power estimation (20) increases
of the proposed method with 16-QAM modulation. The SER
for higher order modulations. Note that the Eb /No loss due to
upper bound of the differential STBC scheme with 16-PSK
the use of the channel power estimator becomes 0.6 dB when
modulation is also plotted for comparison. The proposed
64-QAM is employed (see Fig. 2), although the estimation
method and the differential STBC require Eb /N0 of 23.2 dB
interval L = 100.
and 25.2 dB, respectively, to achieve SER of 10−3 . The SNR
advantage of the proposed method over the differential STBC VI. C ONCLUSIONS
is 2 dB at SER of 10−3 .
We proposed a differential STBC technique for four transmit
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS antennas using non-constant modulus constellations which
In this section, we provide simulation results of the proposed provides significant gains compared to the conventional dif-
method in Rayleigh flat fading channel. The SER of the ferential STBC. The transmitted signals are modulated using

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 0
10
achieved at higher transmission rates (such as 5.6 dB gain
at a transmission rate of 3 bits/channel).
R EFERENCES
[1] S. M. Alamouti, ”A simple transmitter diversity scheme for wireless
10
−1 communications,” IEEE J. Select. Areas Comm., vol. 16, pp. 1451-1458,
Oct. 1998.
Symbol Error Rate

[2] V. Tarokh, N. Seshadri, and A. R. Calderbank, ”Space-time codes for

high data rate wireless communications: Performance criterion and code
construction,” IEEE Trans. Info. Theory, vol. 44, pp. 744-765, Mar. 1998.
[3] V. Tarokh, H. Jafarkhani, and A. R. Calderbank, ”Space-time block
coding from orthogonal designs,” IEEE J. Select. Areas Comm., vol.
10
−2
48, pp. 1456-1467, July 1999.
[4] V. Tarokh and H. Jafarkhani, ”A differential detection scheme for
transmit diversity,” IEEE J. Select. Areas Comm., vol. 18, pp. 1169-
Known p(16QAM) 1174, July 2000.
Estimated(16QAM)
Differential(16PSK) [5] H. Jafarkhani and V. Tarokh, ”Multiple transmit antenna differential de-
Known p(64QAM) tection from generalized orthogonal designs,” IEEE Trans. Info. Theory,
Estimated(64QAM)
−3
Differential(64PSK) vol. 47, pp. 2626-2631, Sept. 2001.
10 [6] C. S. Hwang, S. H. Nam, J. Chung, and V. Tarokh, ”Differential
5 10 15 20 25 30
E /N
b 0
space time block codes using nonconstant modulus constellations,” IEEE
Trans. Sig. Processing, vol. 51, no. 11, pp. 2955-2964, Nov. 2003.
Fig. 2. The SER of the proposed method with 16-/64-QAM in a static [7] J. G. Proakis, Digital Communications, McGRAW-HILL, 1995.
fading channel. The SER of differential STBC with 16-/64-PSK is plotted as [8] http://functions.wolfram.com/
a reference.

0
10
Known p
EstimatedL=100
EstimatedL=50
EstimatedL=25
EstimatedL=10

−1
10
Symbol Error Rate

−2
10

−3
10
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Eb/N0

Fig. 3. Simulated SER of the proposed method while the estimation interval
L is varied from 5 to 100 (2 bits/channel use)

PAM, encoded in a manner similar to that of the conventional

differential STBC and then normalized by a factor equal to the
power of the previously sent symbols. The received signal is
divided by the estimated channel power, and decoded using an
ordinary QAM decoder which treats pairs of transmitted PAM
symbols as virtual QAM symbols. To estimate the channel
power, we developed a simple estimation method that does
not require training symbols.
An approximate upper bound on the SER was presented
and simulation results were provided that demonstrating the
performance of the proposed method compared to this bound.
It was shown that by using 16-QAM constellation a gain of
1.6 dB over the conventional 16-PSK differential STBC can
be achieved. Our results demonstrate that higher gains are

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