Concatenation of space-time block codes and turbo product codes over Rayleigh flat fading channels

Space-Time Block Codes(STBCs) are designed to obtain the maximum possible diversity gain. However, STBCs are not designed to achieve an additional coding gain [1,2]. Therefore, STBCs need to be concatenated with an outer code which provides a significant coding gain. Turbo Product Codes (TPCs) are a kind of high-efficient coding scheme in high code rate, which more approach the Shannon limit than do turbo convolutional code(TCC)[3]. In this paper, we consider the concatenation of TPCs with STBCs to improve the reliability of the wireless communication systems. We combined turbo product code(64, 57, 4) 2 as an outer code. STBCs-TPCs system with Multi pie-transmit and single-receive antenna(MISO) are investigated for Rayleigh flat fading channels. Simulation results show that for one system with total spectral efficiency of 0.793 bits/s/Hz, Bit Error Rate (BER) is 0 at E-b/N-0 of 7dB using 4 Transmit antennas(4Tx) or at E-b/N-0 of 12dB using 3Tx or at E-b/N-0 of 21dB for 2Tx and that for another system with total spectral efficiency of 1.19 bits/s/Hz, BER is 0 at E-b/N-0 of 8dB using 4Tx or at E-b/N-0 of 15dB using 3Tx.