Space-Time Coding and Signal Processing for MIMO Communications

Rapid growth in mobile computing and other wireless multimediaservices is inspiring many research and development activities onhigh-speed wireless communication systems. Main challenges in thisarea include the development of efficient coding and modulationsignal processing techniques for improving the quality and spectralefficiency of wireless systems. The recently emerged space-timecoding and signal processing techniques for wireless communicationsystems employing multiple transmit and receive antennas offer apowerful paradigm for meeting these challenges. This paperprovides an overview on the recent development in space-timecoding and signal processing techniques for multiple-input multiple-output(MIMO) communication systems. We first review the informationtheoretic results on the capacities of wireless systems employingmultiple transmit and receive antennas. We then describe tworepresentative categories of space-time systems, namely, the BLASTsystem and the space-time block coding system, both of which havebeen proposed for next-generation high-speed wireless system. Signal processingtechniques for channel estimation and decoding in space-timesystems are also discussed. Finally, some other coding and signalprocessing techniques for wireless systems employing multipletransmit and receive antennas that are currently under intensiveresearch are also briefly touched upon.