Space-time coding and modulation exploit the presence of multiple transmit antennas to improve performance on multipath radio channels. Thus far, most work on space-time coding has assumed that perfect channel estimates are available at the receiver. In certain situations, however, it may be difficult or costly to estimate the channel accurately, in which case it is natural to consider the design of modulation techniques that do not require channel estimates at the transmitter or receiver. We propose a general approach to differential modulation for multiple transmit antennas based on group codes. This approach can be applied to any number of transmit and receive antennas, and any signal constellation. We also derive low-complexity differential receivers, error bounds, and modulator design criteria, which we use to construct optimal differential modulation schemes for two transmit antennas. These schemes can be demodulated with or without channel estimates. This permits the receiver to exploit channel estimates when they are available. Performance degrades by approximately 3 dB when estimates are not available.

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