Guidelines for serially concatenated space-time code design in flat Rayleigh fading channels

Analytical expressions bounding the performance of serially concatenated space-time codes are provided for quasi-static and rapid flat fading models. These expressions lead to guidelines for achieving large interleaving gains through serial concatenation for space-time codes in wireless fading channels. The performance of an example serially concatenated space-time code designed for a rapid fading channel is analyzed numerically. Simulation results show agreement with the guidelines provided. An iterative decoding scheme is used at the receiver. For applications which can tolerate delay, significant gain can be achieved with the proposed approach.