Alamouti-type space-time coding for free-space optical communication with direct detection

A modification of the Alamouti code originally proposed for RF wireless applications is described that allows it to be applied in scenarios such as free-space optical communication with direct detection where unipolar modulations like pulse-position modulation and on-off keying are traditionally used to convey the information. The modification of the code and associated decision metric is such as to maintain all of the desirable properties of the original scheme.