A fast decodable full-rate STBC with high coding gain for 4 × 2 MIMO systems

In this work, a new fast-decodable space-time block code (STBC) is proposed. The code is full-rate and full-diversity for 4 × 2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission. Due to the unique structure of the codeword, the proposed code requires a much lower computational complexity to provide maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding performance. It is shown that the ML decoding complexity is only O(M4,5) when M-ary square QAM constellation is used. Finally, the proposed code has highest minimum determinant among the fast-decodable STBCs known in the literature. Simulation results prove that the proposed code provides the best bit error rate (BER) performance among the state-of-the-art STBCs.