Pulse position modulated space-time trellis coding for ultra-wideband impulse radio multiple-input multiple-output communication systems

The design of pulse position modulated (PPM) space-time trellis codes (STTC) for ultra-wideband impulse radio (UWB-IR) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems over slow and fast fading multipath channels is considered. First, A probability of error analysis is carried out to derive upper bounds on pairwise symbol error probability at high and low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). From the upper bounds, A new distance notion is introduced and novel design criteria for optimal (in error rate performance) M-ary PPM STTC are deduced for UWB. An optimal binary-PPM STTC is designed for two transmit antennas. Finally, simulation results of the UWB-IR MIMO system, using the optimal STTC, confirm significant improvement in bit-error-rate performance over the uncoded UWB-IR single-input single-output system and also over previously proposed space-time coding scheme for UWB, at higher SNR.