Coding for the Non-Orthogonal Amplify-and-Forward Cooperative Channel

In this work, we consider the problem of coding for the half-duplex non-orthogonal amplify-and-forward (NAF) cooperative channel where the transmitter to relay and the inter-relay links are highly reliable. We derive bounds on the diversity order of the NAF protocol that are achieved by a distributed space-time bit-interleaved coded modulation (D-ST-BICM) scheme under iterative APP detection and decoding. These bounds lead to the design of space-time precoders that ensure maximum diversity order and high coding gains. The word error rate performance of D-ST-BICM are also compared to outage probability limits.