Coding over space and time for wireless systems

In wireless communications, channel coding is used to combat impairments such as noise or fading. Redundant information is added at the transmitter, to enable reliable detection and decoding of the message at the receiver. With the advent of multiple-antenna techniques, coding for the wireless channel has become an attractive topic of research. Several original schemes have been devised over the past decade that benefit particularly well from the added spatial dimension: clever space-time diversity mappings, coined "space-time coding," increase the reliability of the wireless link, while "spatial multiplexing" and its corresponding demultiplexing and detection algorithms achieve high data rates at unprecedented spectral efficiencies. The combination of channel coding with numerous variations and mixtures of the above poses interesting design challenges. In this article we, admittedly, take a more channel-coding-centric view of a wireless communication link, and outline the current state of the art as well as future trends in coding over space and time