Space-time block coding is a technique used in wireless communications to transmit multiple copies of a data stream across antennas to improve reliability. It represents the data as a matrix with symbols transmitted from each antenna over time. Orthogonal space-time block codes transmit symbols such that the vectors representing pairs of columns are orthogonal, allowing for simple linear decoding. This improves performance in fading environments over single-input single-output systems with minimal complexity. Higher order codes achieve higher rates but require more antennas.