Adaptive modulation for space–frequency block coded OFDM systems

The growing popularity of both multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems has created the need for adaptive modulation to integrate temporal, spatial and spectral components together. In this article, an overview of some adaptive modulation schemes for OFDM is presented. Then a new scheme consisting of a combination of adaptive modulation, OFDM, high-order space-frequency block codes (SFBC), and antenna selection is presented. The proposed scheme exploits the benefits of space–frequency block codes, OFDM, adaptive modulation and antenna selection to provide high-quality transmission for broadband wireless communications. The spectral efficiency advantage of the proposed system is examined. It is shown that antenna selection with adaptive modulation can greatly improve the performance of the conventional SFBC–OFDM systems.