In this paper, we discuss the use of convolutional codes with a multi-antenna transmission scheme for DS/CDMA systems. The binary input data to a rate 1/M encoder produces M coded bits, which, in turn, are assigned to M different antennas and transmitted from each antenna simultaneously. An intentional delay of several chips duration is introduced at each antenna before transmission, which enables a receiver to distinguish the signals from different antennas. Because the proposed scheme utilizes spatial and time domains for coding, it can achieve not only implicit time-diversity through the use of coding with interleaving, but also space-diversity through the transmission from multiple antennas. Multi-antenna schemes with convolutional codes can perform better than conventional single antenna schemes with the same codes and transmission diversity technique with the same number of transmitting antennas, especially when a fading is relatively slow and interleaving size is limited.

This paper proposes a direct-sequence spread spectrum (DS/SS) communication system with a new diversity technique designed for indoor multi-path fading channels where path diversity isn't available. In this system, the transmitter sends a same signal from multiple antennas at the same time with intentional time delays, which allows the receiver to distinguish and combine the signals from different antennas. We also consider the combination of this scheme with the conventional receiving antenna diversity for additional diversity gain. Furthermore, it is found that the use of the multiple transmitting antennas decreases the effect of the multiple access interference.

We study the joint optimization problem of a transmitter with multiple transmit antennas and a receiver with multiple receive antennas in a narrow-band communication system. We discuss the problem of designing a pre-filter at the transmitter, a post-filter at the receiver, and a bit allocation pattern to multiple symbols in the sense of minimizing the average bit error rate. With the optimized filters and the bit allocation, we could realize high efficiency and high data rate in band-limited channels.