A family of space-time block codes achieving full diversity with linear receivers

In this paper, we propose a design scheme for a family of space-time block codes (STBCs) that achieve full diversity when linear receivers, such as zero-forcing (ZF) or minimum mean square error (MMSE) receivers, are used. New STBCs obtained based on this design scheme are characterized by their special structure that combines/overlays orthogonal STBCs (OSTBCs) and Toeplitz codes together, which are called Group Orthogonal-Toeplitz Codes (GOTCs). By choosing different parameters, codes with different symbol rates and orthogonality can be obtained. It is indicated that the existing STBCs achieving full diversity with linear receivers, such as the Toeplitz codes and overlapped Alamouti codes (OACs) recently proposed in the literature and the OSTBCs are three members of the GOTCs with different parameters. It is also shown that the time-reversal space-time block codes (TR-STBCs) and delay diversity codes (DDCs) for frequency selective channels are equivalent to OACs and Toeplitz codes, respectively, and thus they both can achieve full space-frequency diversity with only linear receivers. Furthermore, simulations show that with linear receivers, GOTCs outperforming the above mentioned three codes can be obtained from the proposed design scheme.