On the code and interleaver design of broadband OFDM systems

In this letter, we study the performance of space-frequency-coded orthogonal frequency-division modulation systems over multiple-input multiple-output frequency-selective channels. The diversity and coding advantages are derived in terms of the minimum Hamming distance and the minimum squared product distance of the code as well as the relative frequency locations (tones) where a pair of codewords with the minimum Hamming distance differ. These relationships between performance and well-defined code parameters provide new insight to code construction and interleaving design. In addition, we propose a block interleaver that yields nearly optimal coding advantage for space-frequency trellis codes.