Error Probability, Diversity and Coding Gain Considerations in Space-Time Coded Systems with Linear Precoding

In order to account for the performance degradation in space-time block coded (STBC) systems in the presence of spatial correlation, linear precoding has been proposed that allows for reconfigurable transmission along the eigenvalues of the channel covariance matrix. In this paper a generalized formulation of the linear precoder is first presented. Then, the performance enhancements in terms of diversity, coding gain and error probability when employing linear precoding are analytically assessed.