Performance analysis of space-time MMSE multiuser detection for coded DS-CDMA systems in multipath fading channels

This paper investigates the use of convolutional coding in space-time minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) multiuser-based receivers over asynchronous multipath Rayleigh fading channels. We focus on the performance gain attained through error control coding when used with binary-phase-shift-keyed modulation (BPSK) and multiuser access based on direct sequence-code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA). In our analysis, we derive an approximation for the uncoded probability of bit-error in multipath fading channels. This bit-error rate (BER) approximation is shown to be very accurate when compared to the exact performance. For a convolutionally coded system, we obtain a closed form expression for the bit-error rate upper bound. This error bound is noted to be tight as the number of quantization levels increased beyond eight. Using our theoretical results, we obtain an estimate for the achieved user-capacity that accrues due to error control coding. It is found that using convolutional coding with 3-bit soft-decision decoding, a user-capacity gain as much as 300% can easily be achieved when complete fading state information plus ideal channel interleaving are assumed.