Performance Validation for MMSE Turbo Equalization in ST-BICM Systems

This paper presents a simple approach to assess performance that can be achieved by the MMSE turbo equalizer in ST-BICM systems over multipaths Rayleigh block fading channels with i.i.d fading statistics. By considering perfect information exchange between the SISO decoder and the linear MMSE equalizer, the performance reaches the matched filter bound, and a closed form expression of the corresponding probability of bit error can be derived at the output of the equalizer. In particular, we emphasize that the suggested approach provides an attractive and reliable tool for performance validation consistently with the proposed expression of the probability of bit error. Simulations for 4-PSK and 8-PSK modulated signals show the relevance of the proposed approach and the full benefit provided by the MMSE turbo equalizer. In addition some clarification of the signal-to- noise ratio definition is pointed out.