Transmitter and
receiver units for use in a
communications system and configurable to provide antenna, frequency, or temporal diversity, or a combination thereof, for transmitted signals. The
transmitter unit includes a
system data processor, one or more modulators, and one or more antennas. The
system data processor receives and partitions an input
data stream into a number of
channel data streams and further processes the
channel data streams to generate one or more modulation symbol vector streams. Each modulation symbol vector
stream includes a sequence of modulation symbol vectors representative of data in one or more
channel data streams. Each modulator receives and modulates a respective modulation symbol vector
stream to provide an RF modulated
signal, and each antenna receives and transmits a respective RF modulated
signal. Each modulator may include an inverse (fast)
Fourier transform (IFFT) and a
cyclic prefix generator. The IFFT generates time-domain representations of the modulation symbol vectors, and the
cyclic prefix generator repeats a portion of the time-domain representation of each modulation symbol vector. The channel data streams are modulated using multi-
carrier modulation, e.g., OFDM modulation.
Time division multiplexing (TDM) may also be used to increase flexibility.