Patent ID: 8750418

Claim:
A method for transmitting a mother code in an incremental redundancy (IR) hybrid automatic repeat-request (HARQ) protocol, the method comprising: obtaining a set of information bits, the set of information bits corresponding to messages to be transmitted by a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmitter; encoding and interleaving the set of information bits to produce the mother code; assigning each bit position of the mother code to one output symbol in a plurality of output symbols; mapping each output symbol in the plurality of output symbols to a corresponding antenna in a plurality of antennas for transmission; and performing a plurality of transmissions of symbols from the plurality of output symbols the plurality of transmissions comprising: puncturing the mother code by selecting one or more symbols from the plurality of output symbols, wherein the selecting is subsequent to the mapping of each output symbol in the plurality of output symbols to its corresponding antenna; transmitting information on the mother code by transmitting each symbol in the one or more symbols on an antenna corresponding to that symbol; and in response to receiving a retransmission request, transmitting additional information on the mother code by: re-puncturing the mother code by selecting the one or more symbols previously transmitted and one or more additional symbols not previously transmitted from the plurality of output symbols, wherein the re-puncturing is based on the assigning of each bit position of the mother code to the one output symbol in the plurality of output symbols; and transmitting each symbol in the one or more symbols previously transmitted and each symbol in the one or more additional symbols on their corresponding antennas.