A BER analysis of a space-time signal processing scheme that combines transmitter diversity with beamforming

We introduce a new space-time signal processing scheme that uses both transmitter diversity technique and beamforming technique for code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems. The introduced scheme achieves the diversity gain over Rayleigh fading channel through the transmitter diversity technique, and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain by the beamforming technique. Bit error rate (BER) analyses are given each of the three cases in which the transmitter diversity, beamforming and introduced combined scheme are used, in the frequency-flat Rayleigh fading channel. The analytic results are shown to coincide with the Monte-Carlo simulation results. We show that the combined scheme is more robust to the channel correlation and the speed of mobile than the diversity and beamforming scheme. Furthermore, the combined scheme gives a reduced multiple-access-interference because of its beamforming capability.