Transceiver design for MIMO wireless systems incorporating hybrid ARQ

Hybrid ARQ, an extension of ARQ that incorporates forward error correction coding, is a retransmission scheme employed in current communications systems. The use of HARQ can contribute to efficient utilization of the available resources and the provision of reliable services in latest-generation systems. This article focuses on wireless systems using HARQ with emphasis on the multiple-input multiple-output paradigm. MIMO-HARQ offers new opportunities because of the additional degrees of freedom introduced by the multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver. The architecture of MIMO transceivers that are based on bit-interleaved coded modulation and employ HARQ is described. Additionally, receiver implementations are presented and compared in terms of complexity, memory requirements, and performance.