Single-symbol ML decoding for orthogonal and quasi-orthogonal STBC in clipped MIMO-OFDM systems using a clipping noise model with Gaussian approximation

An efficient way to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in OFDM systems is clipping. After the clipping in an MIMO-OFDM system, the additive noise may not be white. In this paper, we develop fast (single-symbol) ML decoding algorithms for orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBC) and (linearly transformed) quasi orthogonal spacetime block codes (QOSTBC) in clipped MIMO-OFDM systems by using a clipping noise model with Gaussian approximation. By using the statistics of the clipping distortions, our newly developed fast ML decoding algorithms improve the performance for clipped MIMO-OFDM systems with OSTBC and QOSTBC while the decoding complexities are not increased. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the improvement.