A robust STBC-based transmit diversity scheme for OFDM systems over spatially transmit correlated fading channels

In this paper, we propose a robust space-time block coded (STBC)-based transmit diversity scheme with low decoding complexity against spatially transmit-correlated fading channels compared with the conventional STBC orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (STBC-OFDM) schemes. The proposed scheme is comprised of Alamouti code for spatial diversity and a simple mapping process with subcarrier selection for frequency diversity. Proceeding from a detailed analysis of the rank and determinant of the channel correlation matrix, we present a proper subcarrier selection scheme satisfying the conditions for robustness against spatial transmit correlation. Furthermore, when the receiver employs a low-complexity decoder such as a zero-forcing decoder, the proposed scheme shows improved performance compared with the existing space-frequency coded OFDM schemes. Index Terms--Fourth-order diversity gain, space-time block coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (STBC-OFDM), spatial transmit correlation.