Cooperative space-time coding for MIMO OFDM systems

We consider a cooperative space-time coded OFDM system in frequency selective fading channels. We. perform an asymptotic analysis on pairwise error probability (PEP) that shows the coding and diversity gains, for various inter-user channel qualities. We then present convolutional codes that are capable of achieving potential diversity gains available in the system with the constraint that they also provide the best possible performance in the inter-user channel. Simulation results show that cooperative space-time coding can greatly improve the OFDM system performance in terms of frame error probability (FEP). Even though the inter-user channel is noisy, the codes still provide substantial diversity and coding gains over the noncooperative case.