Space--time signaling for high data rates in EDGE

Abstract

Several space-time coding and processing techniques have been introduced in the literature for enhancing the capacity of wireless systems through antenna diversity or spatial multiplexing. We study the application of such techniques to an adaptive coded modulation system in multipath channels with intersymbol interference. One of the key requirements for application of these schemes is the use of appropriate training symbols for channel estimation at the receiver. We determine the training requirements for coherent receiver operation when multiple transmit antennas are used. We show that for the special case of the delay diversity scheme, transmitting the same training sequence from the two antennas is optimal. For more general schemes, we present training sequences that have good auto-correlation and cross-correlation properties that can be used in a practical system such as Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution (EDGE). We present detailed link level simulations that include channel estimation for the proposed schemes. We then determine the system throughput that is achieved for packet data with ideal link adaptation for deployment scenarios with 1/3, 3/9, 4/12, and 7/21 frequency reuse. We conclude that the gains from transmit diversity are not significant when there is frequency hopping as in an EDGE system and that a factor of 3 gain in throughput can be achieved when four transmit and four receive antennas are available using simple space-time transmission and receiver processing.