Blind Symbol Identifiability of Orthogonal Space-Time Block Codes

This paper addresses the blind symbol identifiability of the orthogonal space-time block code (OSTBC) scheme. That is, the conditions under which OSTBC symbols can be identified without ambiguity when channel state information is not available. In many space-time communication schemes, achieving unique blind symbol identification requires certain assumptions on the number of receiver antennas and the rank of the channel matrix. In this paper we show that unique blind symbol identification of OSTBCs is possible for any number of receiver antennas and for any (nonzero) channel matrix. This attractive unique identifiability result is shown to be achieved by a class of OSTBCs that exhibit certain matrix non-rotational properties. Using these properties, we validate the identifiability of a number of commonly used OSTBCs.