In this thesis, space-time block codes originally developed for multiple antenna systems are extended to cooperative multi-hop networks. The designs are applicable to any wireless network setting especially cellular, adhoc and sensor networks where space limitations preclude the use of multiple antennas. The thesis first investigates the design of distributed orthogonal and quasi-orthogonal space time block codes in cooperative networks with single and multiple antennas at the destination. Numerical and simulation results show that by employing multiple receive antennas the diversity performance of the network is further improved at the expense of slight modification of the detection scheme. The thesis then focuses on designing distributed space time block codes for cooperative networks in which the source node participates in cooperation. Based on this, a source-assisting strategy is proposed for distributed orthogonal and quasi-orthogonal space time block codes. Numerical and simulation results show that the source-assisting strategy exhibits improved diversity performance compared to the conventional distributed orthogonal and quasi-orthogonal designs. Motivated by the problem of channel state information acquisition in practical wireless network environments, the design of differential distributed space time block codes is investigated. Specifically, a co-efficient vector-based differential encoding and decoding scheme is proposed for cooperative networks. The thesis then explores the concatenation of differential strategies with several distributed space time block coding schemes namely; the Alamouti code, square-real orthogonal codes, complex-orthogonal codes, and quasiorthogonal codes, using cooperative networks with different number of relay nodes. In order to cater for high data rate transmission in non-coherent cooperative networks, differential distributed quasi-orthogonal space-time block codes which are capable of achieving full code-rate and full diversity are proposed. Simulation results demonstrate that the differential distributed quasi-orthogonal space-time block codes outperform existing distributed space time block coding schemes in terms of code rate and bit-error-rate performance. A multidifferential distributed quasi-orthogonal space-time block coding scheme is also proposed to exploit the additional diversity path provided by the source-destination link. A major challenge is how to construct full rate codes for non-coherent cooperative broadband networks with more than two relay nodes while exploiting the achievable spatial and frequency diversity. In this thesis, full rate quasi-orthogonal codes are designed for noncoherent cooperative broadband networks where channel state information is unavailable. From this, a generalized differential distributed quasi-orthogonal space-frequency coding scheme is proposed for cooperative broadband networks. The proposed scheme is able to achieve full rate and full spatial and frequency diversity in cooperative networks with any number of relays. Through pairwise error probability analysis we show that the diversity gain of the proposed scheme can be improved by appropriate code construction and sub-carrier allocation. Based on this, sufficient conditions are derived for the proposed code structure at the source node and relay nodes to achieve full spatial and frequency diversity. In order to exploit the additional diversity paths provided by the source-destination link, a novel multidifferential distributed quasi-orthogonal space-frequency coding scheme is proposed. The overall objective of the new scheme is to improve the quality of the detected signal at the destination with negligible increase in the computational complexity of the detector. Finally, a differential distributed quasi-orthogonal space-time-frequency coding scheme is proposed to cater for high data rate transmission and improve the performance of noncoherent cooperative broadband networks operating in highly mobile environments. The approach is to integrate the concept of distributed space-time-frequency coding with differential modulation, and employ rotated constellation quasi-orthogonal codes. From this, we design a scheme which is able to address the problem of performance degradation in highly selective fading environments while guaranteeing non-coherent signal recovery and full code rate in cooperative broadband networks. The coding scheme employed in this thesis relaxes the assumption of constant channel variation in the temporal and frequency dimensions over long symbol periods, thus performance degradation is reduced in frequencyselective and time-selective fading environments. Simulation results illustrate the performance of the proposed differential distributed quasi-orthogonal space-time-frequency coding scheme under different channel conditions.