A New Transmit Scheme Combining Beamforming with Space-Time Block Coding

In this paper, a new transmit scheme combining beamforming (BF) with space-time block coding (STBC) is proposed for correlated fading channels. Based on maximizing the output mean signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver, the transmitter BF weight vectors are first derived. Then, utilizing the minimal bit error rate (BER) upper bound as the design criterion, a simple power allocation algorithm is developed. Next, the BER performance of the system with the proposed transmit scheme is analyzed by considering an M-QAM constellation. Finally, computer simulation results are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.