A RANK CRITERION FOR QAM SPACE-TIME CODES WITH APPLICATION TO TURBO

CODING

Youjian Liu, Michael P. Fitz, Oscar Y. Takeshita, and Zhongxin Han

liuy@eemail.eng.ohio-state.edu, fitz.7@osu.edu,
takeshita.3@osu.edu, han@math.ohio-state.edu

ABSTRACT
Sufficient conditions to ensure QAM space-time codes achieve by Blum [4].
full space diversity in quasi-static fading channel are pre-
sented. The conditions are on code words or generator
matrices instead of on every code word pair. This sim-
plifies the check of full space diversity of a code. Based
on these conditions, full space diversity parallel concate-
nated turbo codes are proposed to use in a multiple ele-
ment antenna environment. Comparing with space-time
trellis codes, the simulations show it has robust perfor-
mance at both quasi-static fading channel and time vary-
ing fading channel.
1. INTRODUCTION
For wireless communication, the design goal of so called
“space–time” codes [1] is to take advantage of both the spa-
tial diversity provided by multiple antennas and the tempo-
ral diversity available with time–varying fading.
In quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel, each possible
code word difference in a coded modulation produces a “sig-
nal” matrix. Increasing the rank of a “signal” matrix in-
creases the amount of diversity in demodulation and reduces
the pair-wise error probability [1, 2]. If the code length in
time, Nc , is larger than the number of transmit antennas,
Lt , the maximum possible rank of a “signal” matrix is Lt .
A code is said to achieve full space diversity when the rank
of every “signal” matrix corresponding to every code word
pair is equal to Lt . While the ranks of the “signal” matrices
are defined over the complex number field, traditional code
design is usually carried out in finite fields or finite rings. ory of  o -rank criterion. As an application of the theory, the
This discrepancy causes a serious obstacle in the design.
The paper by Hammons and El Gamal [3] represents an im-
portant first step to bridge this discrepancy. They provided
a binary rank criteria for binary BPSK codes and Z4 QPSK
codes to ensure full space diversity. More recently, the de-
sign of PSK modulated space-time codes are also addressed
In [5], we provide a theory for the design of space-time
codes in quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel with higher
order of constellation (22k QAM), such as QPSK, 16 QAM,
64 QAM, etc. It includes the BPSK binary rank criterion
in [3] as a special case. For QPSK constellation, it is ap-
plicable to GF(4) codes instead of Z4 codes as in [3]. Con-
sequently, many traditional codes and turbo codes can be
modified to be space-time codes.
Some space–time trellis codes may have low level of di-
versity in space–time correlated fading channels [2]. Lower
performance is caused by the interaction between the chan-
nel structure and the code structure. A ”random” coding
structure would reduce this interaction. Turbo coding is the
current best way to build decodable ”random” codes. The
inherent rich structure of turbo codes will likely to provide
robust performance in the variety of channels that will likely
be encountered in wireless practice. Efforts have been made
to adapt turbo codes to multiple transmit antennas environ-
ment. A discussion of other groups' work can be found
in [5]. In [6], the BPSK binary rank criterion [3] is used
to ensure full space diversity of the parallel concatenated
turbo codes. Although parallel concatenated QPSK “space-
time turbo codes” has been proposed in [7, 8], full space
diversity is not guaranteed due to the lack of proper theory.
The o -rank criterion developed in [5] enables us to design
full space diversity QPSK turbo codes.
In Section 2, we give the signal models and explain the
space-time code design criteria. Section 3 presents the the-
design and performance of QPSK space-time turbo codes
are given in Section 4. Section 5 concludes.
2. MODELS AND PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

This work was supported by National Science Foundation under Grant

NCR-9706372.
J
A space-time code word is an Nc by Lt matrix with ele-
ments drawn from a finite alphabet. The code symbol ma-
Y. Liu, M. P. Fitz, and O. Y. Takeshita are with Department of Elec-
trical Engineering, The Ohio State University, 205 Dreese Lab, 2015 Neil D
trix is defined as D J
= f ( ), where f () is an element-
Ave., Columbus OH 43210. Z. Han is with Department of Mathematics. wise constellation mapping from the finite alphabet to points
 Definition 1 (Ring Z2k (j )) The ring Z2k (j ) is a finite set
G C1,1

and k is a positive integer. Each element V has the form,

D1 G
Q1

C2 ,1

C1, 2
V = VI  jVQ ;
where the real part VI and imaginary part VQ are integers
G G
D2 Q2

C 2, 2 in Z2k and j 2 = ?1 = ?1 + 2k . In this paper, nonnegative

Figure 1: A system with 2 transmit antennas and 2 receive
antennas.
of a constellation on the complex plane. The element at ith
D
column and j th row of , Di (j ), is transmitted from ith
antenna at time j . Note that, in this paper, the variable in
the subscript is used to indicate the column of a matrix if
not explicitly specified.
Let Lr be the number of receive antennas. The signals
integers in f0; 1;


; 2k ? 1g are used to label elements in
Z2k. The addition and multiplication in this ring are the ad-
dition and multiplication in complex number field followed
by modulo 2k operation on the real part and the imaginary
part.
Definition 2 (Linear Z2k (j ) Code with Translation Map-
ping) A linear Z2k (j ) code C is a set of code words which
form an additive group. Each code word is an Nc by Lt J
matrix with elements in the ring Z2k (j ). The linearity im-
J J J J
plies that if  ;  2 C , then    2 C . Each code word
transmitted from each antenna experience spatial indepen-
J
matrix is mapped to a complex? code symbol matrix
by D
dent quasi-static Rayleigh fading. The matched filter output
of the received signal at k th receive antenna from time 1 to the translation,D J = ? (2k ? 1)=2 + j (2k ? 1)=2 . It
Nc is results in a 22k QAM constellation.
D
Q~ k = C~ k + W~ k ; (1)
A linear Z2k (j ) code can be represented as a linear trans-
where Q ~ k is an Nc by 1 vector, W~ k is Nc by 1 complex Ad- formation from information sequence to code word:
ditive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) vector with one side
power spectrum N0 , and C ~ k is an Lt by 1 fading coefficient J = 
J~1 J~2


J~Lt

vector. Let Ck;l denote the lth element of C ~ k . Ck;l models 
(2)

a Rayleigh fading channel common in wireless communi- = G1 I~ G2I~


GLt I~  ; (3)

cations by being zero mean complex Gaussian random vari-
able. Ck;l 's are assumed independent for different k or l and
known to the receiver. Figure 1 shows an example of such
system with 2 transmit antennas and 2 receive antennas.
where I~ is an Z2k input information sequence, J~i denotes
G
the ith column of the code word matrix, and i is the Z2k (j )
generator matrix for ith antenna.
Considering two code symbol matrices,  and  , D D
the code symbol difference matrix Z
is defined as Z = Definition 3 (o -Coefficients) Coefficients, 1 , 2 , : : :, L ,
D D
 ?  . With a goal of minimizing the pair-wise er- in Z2k (j ) are said to be o -coefficients if there exists i such
ror probability, the quasi-static fading channel design crite- that ai + bi is odd, where ai  jbi = i .
ria [1,2] are to maximize the rank of code symbol difference
Z
matrix and maximize the product of nonzero eigenvalues Definition 4 (Column o -Rank) A matrix over the ring V
Z Z
of H for all pairs of code words. Z2k(j ) has column o -rank L if L is the maximum number
V
of column vectors of , such that
3. THEORY OF RANK CRITERIA
L
M
In [5], sufficient conditions are provided to ensure full space 9V = fV~i1 ; : : : ; V~iL g; l V~il 6= ~0;
diversity of a code using QAM Modulation. The main re- l=1
sults are presented here without proof. for any o -coefficients, 1 ; 2 ; : : : ; L .

3.1. Preliminary Definitions
The full space diversity rank criteria developed in [5] are for
codes defined on the ring Z2k (j ). In the sequel, n and n
are used to denote the modulo n addition and subtraction,
and subscript n is dropped if the context is clear. Subscripts
I and Q will be used to indicate the real part and imaginary
part of a complex number or a matrix.
The row o -rank can be similarly defined. Since col-
umn o -rank and row o -rank are equal [5], they are called
o -rank.
Definition 5 (Full o -Rank) An m by n matrix over V
ring Z2k (j ) is said to be of full o -rank if it has o -rank
equal to the minimum of m and n.
3.2. o -Rank Criterion 0
10
Information Size=260, 16 QAM, Rate=4 bps/Hz, NTx=2, NRx=2

The sufficient conditions on code words are given first.

Theorem 1 (o -Rank Criterion) Let C be a linear Z2k (j )

-1
10

code with translation mapping to 22k QAM constellation. If

J
every nonzero code word 2 C has full o -rank, then C

Frame Error Rate

-2
10
achieves full space diversity.

For linear codes, the conditions can be translated into -3

10
the conditions on the generator matrices.

Theorem 2 Let C be a linear Z2k (j ) code. The ith column

fd*T=0, New
fd*T=0, AT&T, Delay Diversity
-4
10
of the code word matrix is defined as 14 16 18 20
Es/N0 per Rx Antenna (dB)
22 24 26

J~i = Gi I~; (4)

Figure 2: Performance comparison of 16 QAM space-time
G
where I~ is the information sequence in Z2k (j ), i is the trellis codes with rate 4 bits/symbol and 260 information
generator matrix for ith antenna. If for all o -coefficients, bits/frame.
1 ; 2 ; : : : ; Lt , and for all nonzero information sequence, &

I~,
I &
Recursive Channel D1
Puncture 1 Interleave 1
!
Encoder 1

Lt

Multiplex
M
G i i I~ 6= ~0;
Information
Interleaver
(5) &

i=1 Recursive
Encoder 2 Puncture 2
Channel D2

J J
Interleave 2

then 8 nonzero 2 C , is of full o -rank. Thus, the code

achieves full space diversity. Figure 3: Space-time turbo code encoder for 2 transmit an-
tenna system.
4. APPLICATIONS
4.2. Space–Time Turbo Codes
The analysis of the existing space-time codes and construc-
tion of new space-time codes using the o -rank criterion are 4.2.1. Encoder Design
detailed in [5]. In this section, we present a 16 QAM exam-
ple trellis code and QPSK full space diversity turbo code The encoder of the proposed space–time turbo code [7] is
design. composed of a turbo code followed by the operation of punc-
turing, channel interleaving and multiplexing (Figure 3). As
an example, we consider a rate 2/4 turbo code [9] with 2
4.1. Space-Time Trellis Code transmit antenna and QPSK modulation. Figure 4 illustrates
The o -rank criterion can reduce the computation in the the structure of the turbo code. Let ij be the matrix corre- H
sponding the transfer function from I~(i) to V~ (j ) , where I~(i)
and V~ (j ) are the binary input and output of the component
search for good space-time trellis codes by identifying full
space diversity codes. We give an example of 16 QAM lin-
ear Z4(j ) space-time trellis code with rate 4 bits/symbol and code of the turbo code. If (V~ (1) ; V~ (2) ) are mapped to QPSK
16 states found using the criterion . The generator polyno- symbols using the Gray mapping, then the space-time turbo
mials with x as dummy variable are code can be viewed as a linear Z2(j ) code with ith column
of a code word as
   
G =
1

34 2x 1 4 j 34 2x 2x
   J~i = GiI~
G = 24 3x 0 4 j 3x 24 x :  
Mi HH P HH P II~~ +
2 (1)
= 11 21
(2)
The simulation results are plotted in Figure 2 together with 11 21

the performance of optimal product measure delay diversity


H
j Mi H P H P H 
I~ 
; 12 22
(1)

16 state 16 QAM code [1]. In the simulation, each frame I~ 12 22

corresponds to 260 information bits. With two receive an-
tennas, the performance of our new code, which is the solid
line in the plot, is 1 dB better than the delay diversity code,
which is the dash line in the plot.
(2)
where matrix P corresponds to the information interleaver
and matrix Mi corresponds to the operation of puncturing,
channel interleaving and multiplexing.
 G G Compare not Full Div., Full Div., no MUX,
I (1) V (1) 0
QPSK, Rate=2 bps/Hz, NTx=2, NRx=1, Size=260, fd*T=0
G 10
I (2)
G
V (2)
π1 π2

-1
10

Frame Error Rate

Figure 4: A rate 2/4 turbo code in [9].
-2
10

ST-Turbo, #state-CC=4, not Full Div., MUX

Make Decision
Symbol Prior Info Prior
ST-Turbo, #state-CC=4, Full Div., MUX
Channel Symbol Decoder

Component
Matched Filter Symbol LD Info LD ST-Turbo, #state-CC=4, Full Div., no MUX
decoder 1
ST-TCM, #state=64, AT&T
Outage Capacity

Deinterleaver
Interleaver
-3
10
8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24

Decoded Bits
Es/N0 per Rx Antenna (dB)
Symbol Prior
Component Info Prior
Matched Filter
Symbol LD decoder 2
Info LD Figure 6: Performance in quasi-static fading channel for 3
different cases.
LD: Likelihood

Figure 5: Iterative Decoder for the case of 2 receive anten-

nas. 4.2.3. Simulation Results

The performance of the example code without puncture men-

It is difficult to find a systematic method to construct
P M
the matrix and i so that 1 and 2 satisfy Theorem
2. However, the chance is high that a randomly picked in-
formation interleaver and channel interleaver result in a full
space diversity code.
4.2.2. Decoder
The optimal decoding of a space–time turbo code is compli-
cated for the following reasons. First, the received signal is
a linear combination of symbols from different transmit an-
tennas and the noise. Secondly, the inputs of the component
encoders are interleaved versions of the same information
bits sequence as in turbo code. However, we can use a sub–
optimal iterative algorithm like that for turbo decoding to
decode the code.
The decoder diagram is shown in Figure 5 for the case of
two receive antennas. The fading coefficients are assumed
known to the receiver. The matched filter output is used to
calculate the likelihood of the channel symbols. In the first
iteration, channel symbols from different transmit antenna
are assumed to have equal a priori probability. The turbo
decoder uses the likelihood information to do one iteration
of standard turbo decoding and produces a priori probabil-
ity of the channel symbols. The channel symbol decoder
uses the “new” a priori probability to refine the likelihood
information about the channel symbols which is the start of
the second iteration. After several iterations, hard decisions
on information bits are made based on the soft information
provided by the turbo decoder.
tioned in Section 4.2.1, whose turbo encoder is shown in
G G Figure 4, is evaluated by simulation. In the simulation, each
frame corresponds to 260 information bits. The rate of the
code is 2 bits/symbol.
The performance with one receive antenna in quasi-static
fading channel is shown in Figure 6. There are three cases.
In the first case, the information interleaver and the chan-
nel interleaver are randomly chosen. The outputs of each
component code of the turbo code are multiplexed to two
transmit antennas. The code does not satisfy the o -rank
criterion and rank deficient error event did happen in the
simulation. In the second case, the generator matrices sat-
isfy the o -rank criterion after several trials of random in-
formation interleaver and channel interleaver. Therefore, it
is a full space diversity code. The third case is also a full
space diversity code. But different from the first and the sec-
ond case, there is no multiplexing, which means that all the
outputs from one component code are transmitted only on
one antenna. For comparison, the performance of a 64 state
space-time trellis code in [1] and the outage capacity [10]
are also shown in the plot.
At low SNR, all the three cases have performances close
to the 64 state trellis code. When the SNR increases, the
frame error rates of the first two cases do not decrease as
much as that of the 64 state code. The performance of the
second case showed better slope than the first case since
it is a full diversity code. The performance curve of the
third case has the same slope as the 64 state code and is 2.5
dB away from the outage capacity at frame error rate 0.01.
The third case performs better than the second case. This is
counter intuitive since in the second case, with multiplexing,
the outputs of one component code experience spatial in-
 Time Varying, Turbo, Full Div., No MUX, QPSK

10
0
Rate=2 bps/Hz, NTx=2, NRx=1, Size=260, #state=4
sity [5] are presented. The conditions are on code words or
generator matrices instead of on every code word pair. As
an application example, a full space diversity 16 QAM trel-
-1
lis code is found, which has 1 dB gain over the one with
10
delay diversity [1] when two receive antennas are used.
Frame Error Rate

Methods are given to design full space diversity paral-

lel concatenated turbo codes. The simulation results of an
10
-2
example code demonstrate that we can use very simple com-
ponent codes to obtain equal performance as a space–time
trellis codes with 64 states [1]. In fast fading channels, the
fd*T=0
fd*T=0.001
fd*T=0.01
fd*T=independent
10
-3 performance improves by 8 dB with the additional temporal
5 10 15 20
Es/N0 per Rx Antenna (dB) diversity.

Figure 7: Robustness of performance in slow to fast fading 6. REFERENCES

channel.
Turbo-FullDiv.-NoMux Compare with Grimm-32-State-TCM
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0

3
s

2
1
0
0 0.001
Doppler Spread, fd*T
Figure 8: Performance gain over 32 state space-time trellis
code at different Doppler spread.
dependent fading and should results in better performance.
Further investigation is needed to understand it.
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Doppler spread. The performance improved significantly
when the temporal diversity is available. At frame error rate
0.01, the performance corresponds to the independent fad-
ing has a gain of 8 dB over the quasi-static fading case.
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