Performance study of a hybrid space time block coded system

In this paper we study a hybrid space time block coded system with four transmit antennas. The system consists of one Alamouti space time block coded stream, and two spatial multiplexing streams which are transmitted using two antennas each. The paper also describes and analyze the merits and performance of several detection schemes for a hybrid space time block coded system. These systems are interesting as they allow for both diversity and multiplexing gains in a MIMO system. Most multiantenna systems exploit either diversity or spatial multiplexing gains, but not both. Simulation results comparing the performance of different detection schemes and their performance relative to other transmission schemes such as Alamouti space time block codes and conventional spatial multiplexing are shown.