FER bounds and estimates for bit-interleaved space-time turbo-codes

Abstract:
We consider the performance of bit-interleaved space-time turbo-codes in quasi-static fading, and introduce a technique based on EXIT chart analysis to derive bounds and estimates for the frame error ratio for two different decoding strategies: separate detection and iterative turbo decoding, and iterative joint detection and decoding. The bounds use outage capacity bounds adjusted for the small loss of the outer capacity-approaching turbo-code. By comparison with simulation results we show that the resulting estimate for the case of separate detection and decoding is accurate, while for iterative joint detection and decoding we can lower bound the resulting FER.