Distance spectrum analysis of space-time trellis-coded modulations in quasi-static Rayleigh-fading channels

In this correspondence, we propose an algorithm for computing the distance spectrum of a space-time trellis code achieving maximal diversity gain in quasi-static fading channels. We further present a state reduction technique for trellis codes that can reduce the complexity of the distance spectrum computation. We provide numerical results supporting the empirical evidence that a truncated union bound obtained from the distance spectrum provides an accurate characterization of the relative performance ordering of different space-time trellis codes and, therefore, it offers a tool for better space-time trellis code design. Index Terms--Distance spectrum, performance analysis, space-time coding, state reduction, union bound.