Rateless Space Time Block Code for Massive MIMO Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a rateless space time block code (RSTBC) for massive MIMO systems. The paper illustrates the basis of rateless space time codes deployments in massive MIMO transmissions over wireless erasure channels. In such channels, data may be lost or is not decodable at the receiver due to a variety of factors such as channel fading, interference, or antenna element failure. We show that RSTBC guarantees the reliability of the system in such cases, even when the data loss rate is 25% or more. In such a highly lossy channel, the conventional fixed-rate codes fail to perform well, particularly when channel state information is not available at the transmitter. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the BER performance and the spectral efficiency of the proposed scheme.