Performance of space-time block codes with finite geometry LDPC outer codes

Space-time block codes provide the maximum possible diversity advantage for wireless multiple-input, multipleoutput (MIMO) systems when low complexity decoding is required at the receiver. However, space-time block codes do not provide a coding advantage and as such require the use of an outer code to provide such coding gain. In this paper we propose the use of finite geometry low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes as outer codes to the Alamouti space-time block code. We present modifications required to a space-time block decoder to provide a soft-information bit probability statistic output for sum-product decoding of LDPC codes and investigate the performance of space-time trlock codes with EG-LDPC outer codes in a Rayleigh flat fading environment.