Space-time coding over fading channels with impulsive noise

Impulsive, non-Gaussian noise is prevalent in wireless environments. We adopt an impulsive noise model over multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) channels and discuss receiver and code design over fading channels with impulsive noise. We derive code design criteria for the so-called genie-aided, and minimum distance receivers, both of which yield criteria identical to the nonimpulsive, Gaussian noise case. We also study the performance of certain space-time block codes (STBCs) and space-time trellis codes (STTC) over impulsive noise channels with the genie-aided receiver (GAR) and minimum distance receiver (MDR). The performance loss incurred by the impulsive nature of the noise is shown to increase with the diversity order for the MDR. To approximate the good performance of the practically unrealistic GAR, we propose a maximum a posteriori (MAP) receiver, whose performance can be tightly lower bounded by the GAR. We simplify the optimal MAP receiver by an approximation and show that for alt cases of practical interest, only 2 terms in the approximation are sufficient to get a near-MAP performance. Simulations corroborate our analytical findings

I. Introduction

Impulsive, non-Gaussian noise is prevalent in many communication environments due to a variety of sources, such as man-made electromagnetic interference, atmospheric noise, or ignition noise [3], [4]. In such wireless environments, the performance is degraded both by fading, and impulsive noise. To combat fading, antenna arrays are often used, giving rise to MIMO systems.