A RAKE-based iterative receiver for space-time block-coded multipath CDMA

A turbo multiuser receiver is proposed for space-time block and channel-coded code division multiple access (CDMA) systems in multipath channels. The proposed receiver consists of a first stage that performs detection, space-time decoding, and multipath combining followed by a second stage that performs the channel decoding. A reduced complexity receiver suitable for systems with large numbers of transmitter antennas is obtained by performing the space-time decoding along each resolvable multipath component and then diversity combining the set of space-time decoded outputs. By exchanging the soft information between the first and second stages, the receiver performance is improved via iteration. Simulation results show that while in some cases a noniterative space-time coded system may have inferior performance compared with a system without space-time coding in a multipath channel, proposed iterative schemes significantly outperform systems without space-time coding, even with only two iterations. Furthermore, the performance loss in the reduced-complexity receiver due to decoupling of interference suppression, space-time decoding, and multipath combining is very small for error rates of practical interest.