Research in information, communications and signal processing has brought about new services, applications and functions in a large number of fields which include consumer electronics, biomedical devices and defence. These applications play an important role in advancing technologies to enhance human life in general. Recent Advances in Information, Communications and Signal Processing aims to give students, researchers, and engineers information pertaining to recent advances in these fields. In terms of research in signal processing topics, the two chapters included in this book have a strong emphasis on advances in algorithmic development in the biomedical, and human-computer interfaces domain areas. More specifically, the use of deep learning for placental maturity staging is discussed as well as the use of vibration analysis for localising impacts on surfaces for human-computer applications. In terms of communications signal processing, advances in new wireless communication such as NOMA (non-orthogonal multiple access) and millimetre-wave antenna design for 5G cellular mobile radio, as well as innovations in LDPC (low density parity check code) decoding and networking coding, are featured.

Space-time block code (STBC) is a maturing technology to achieve transmit diversity over fading channels. As the number of transmit antennas increases beyond two, current approaches to design STBCs either make trade off between the achievable diversity gain and the code rate, or achieve both full diversity and full rate at the expense of exponentially increased decoder complexity. This book presents a new STBC design method that combines two real orthogonal STBCs (O-STBC) with offset QAM. This approach is able to achieve both full diversity and full code rate, yet allows simple real symbol wise decoding whose complexity is independent of the number of transmit antennas. This book provides a detailed analysis of the impact of key system parameters on the error performance of the scheme. A complete chapter is devoted to systematic design of the two real O-STBCs for optimal error performance. This book should be useful to any researcher who is in the field of MIMO communications, or any engineering professional who is looking for an effective STBC solution for practical implementation.