Layered Space–Frequency Coded Downlink MC–CDMA in a Cellular System

We consider downlink multi–carrier code–division multiple–access (MC–CDMA) in a multi–cell environment. To achieve good error rate performance and high spectral efficiency, multiple transmit and receive antennas with strong space– frequency channel coding and layered space–time (LST) architecture are applied. We study the performance of the minimum mean squared error (MMSE) based receivers in an interference limited environment. The inter–cell interference suppression in MMSE detection and iterative detection method with soft co– antenna interference (CAI) cancellation are considered. The results indicate that the interference suppression methods in MMSE detection provide remarkable performance improvements, especially in the case of spatially correlated antennas. Furthermore, the considered MIMO MC–CDMA system seems to provide a very promising solution for achieving high date rates in downlink packet access for future cellular networks.