Patent ID: 8498195

Claim:
A transmitter for transmitting an information bearing signal vector s through a transmission channel using a retransmission protocol, the transmitter comprising: a modulator configured to produce at least two different signal vectors s and {hacek over (s)}, wherein signal vector s comprises at least two information symbols s 1 and s 2 and wherein signal vector {hacek over (s)} comprises at least two information symbols {hacek over (s)} 1 and {hacek over (s)} 2 that are different from information symbols s 1 and s 2 , respectively; a precoder configured to precode s and {hacek over (s)}; at least two transmit antennas configured to transmit the precoded s and the precoded {hacek over (s)}; and control logic configured to, in response to a negative acknowledgement signal being received: transmit the precoded {hacek over (s)} from the at least two transmit antennas on even-numbered transmission attempts of the information bearing signal vector s in the retransmission protocol, and transmit the precoded s from the at least two transmit antennas on odd-numbered transmission attempts of the information bearing signal vector s in the retransmission protocol, wherein the precoder is configured to precode the signal vector {hacek over (s)}, which is different from the signal vector s being transmitted, on the even-numbered transmission attempts of the signal vector s in the retransmission protocol.