Patent ID: 8462871

Claim:
A method for operating a wireless transmitter including N antennas, wherein N is greater than two, the method comprising: (a) transmitting a data packet using a first space-time coded (STC) code mapping of a sequence of M STC code mappings, wherein M is greater than or equal to N, wherein each of the STC code mappings specifies a transformation of a block of N symbols to a block of N respective transformed symbols and specifies a one-to-one assignment of each of the N transformed symbols to a respective one of the N antennas, wherein, for each symbol S j of the N symbols and each antenna A k of the N antennas, at least one of the STC code mappings assigns the respective transformed symbol T(S j ) to the antenna A k ; (b) transmitting the data packet using a next of the STC code mappings in the sequence in response to determining that an error has occurred in a most recent transmission of the data packet, wherein the next STC code mapping is a next mapping according to a modulo M ordering of the STC code mappings; (c) continue repeating (b) as long as the most recent transmission of the data packet is unsuccessful.