Improved error performance of a 3/4‐Sezginer space‐time block codes

Summary The Alamouti space‐time block code (STBC) achieves full diversity gain at a rate of 1/2. However, the Alamouti scheme does not provide multiplexing gain. The Silver code offers both diversity and multiplexing gain. It has a minimum normalization determinant of . The Golden code is another STBC that offers both diversity and multiplexing gain. The Golden code is ranked higher than the Silver code because of its lower minimum normalization determinant of , however, the golden code suffers from a high detection complexity in the modulation order of M4. The 3/4‐Sezginer code is another STBC, which compromises between the Alamouti scheme and the Golden code in terms of diversity gain and multiplexing gain. The 3/4‐Sezginer code achieves full diversity and half of multiplexing gain. The uncoded space‐time labeling diversity (USTLD) is a recent scheme that improves the error performance when applied to the STBC in multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) systems and will be applied to the 3/4‐Sezginer STBC to improve the error performance in this paper. The theoretical error probability for both the 3/4‐Sezginer STBC and the improved system is formulated using the union bound in this paper. The theoretical error probabilities of both 16‐QAM and 64‐QAM are validated through Monte Carlo simulation. The simulation and theoretical results show that the proposed system with 4 NR can achieve an SNR gain of 1 dB for 16‐QAM and 1.2 dB 64‐QAM at a bit error rate (BER) of 10−6.