Low PAPR space frequency block coding for multiuser MIMO SC-FDMA systems: specific issues for users with different spectral allocations

Single-carrier space frequency block coding (SC-SFBC) is an innovative mapping scheme suitable for implementing transmit diversity in single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems. The main advantage of SC-SFBC is that it preserves the low envelope variations of SC-FDMA, which is particularly interesting for the uplink of wireless communications systems. In this article, we apply the SC-SFBC concept in a multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) scenario. We introduce a novel algorithm allowing the optimization of the parameters of SC-SFBC to enable low-complexity decoding at the receiver side and to maximize the overall spectral occupancy in MU-MIMO SC-FDMA systems, and we show the good performance of the proposed MU scheme.