Patent ID: 7688899

Claim:
A method for processing data for transmission over multiple transmission channels in a multi-channel communication system, comprising: determining characteristics of a plurality of transmission channels available for data transmission; selecting one or more available transmission channels based on the determined characteristics and a threshold, wherein the multi-channel communication system is a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, and wherein the plurality of available transmission channels correspond to a plurality of spatial subchannels of a MIMO channel; coding data for all selected transmission channels based on a common coding scheme to provide coded data; modulating the coded data for all selected transmission channels based on a common modulation scheme having a corresponding signal constellation to provide modulation symbols; and weighting modulation symbols for the selected transmission channel based on a respective weight indicative of a transmit power level for the selected transmission channel and derived based in part on the determined characteristics of the selected transmission channel, wherein use of the common coding scheme and the common modulation scheme results in approximately the same bit rate for each selected channel.