FIR prefilter design for MLSE equalization of space-time-coded transmission over multipath fading channels

The problem of designing a front-end prefilter to improve the performance and/or reduce the complexity of MLSE equalization of space-time-coded signals is addressed in this paper. The front-end prefilter performs channel shortening without excessive noise enhancement and is constrained to be an FIR filter for practical implementation. Transmission scenarios emphasized assume 2 transmit antennas at the basestation and 1 receive antenna at the mobile. Extensions to more antennas are straightforward. Various design parameters (e.g. no. prefilter taps, no. equalizer states, decision delay, etc.) are optimized using Monte Carlo simulations in a Typical Urban EDGE environment.