Design guidelines for spatial modulation

A new class of low-complexity, yet energyefficient Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) transmission techniques, namely the family of Spatial Modulation (SM) aided MIMOs (SM-MIMO) has emerged. These systems are capable of exploiting the spatial dimensions (i.e. the antenna indices) as an additional dimension invoked for transmitting information, apart from the traditional Amplitude and Phase Modulation (APM). SM is capable of efficiently operating in diverse MIMO configurations in the context of future communication systems. It constitutes a promising transmission candidate for large-scale MIMO design and for the indoor optical wireless communication whilst relying on a single-Radio Frequency (RF) chain. Moreover, SM may also be viewed as an entirely new hybrid modulation scheme, which is still in its infancy. This paper aims for providing a general survey of the SM design framework as well as of its intrinsic limits. In particular, we focus our attention on the associated transceiver design, on spatial constellation optimization, on link adaptation techniques, on distributed/ cooperative protocol design issues, and on their meritorious variants

Single-RF spatial modulation requires single-carrier transmission: frequency-domain turbo equalization for dispersive channels

In this paper, we propose a broadband single-carrier (SC) spatial-modulation (SM) based multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) architecture relying on a soft-decision (SoD) frequency-domain equalization (FDE) receiver. We demonstrate that conventional orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based broadband transmissions are not readily suitable for the single–radio frequency (RF) assisted SM-MIMO schemes, since this scheme does not exhibit any substantial performance advantage over single-antenna transmissions. To circumvent this limitation, a low-complexity soft-decision (SoD) FDE algorithm based on the minimum mean-square error (MMSE) criterion is invoked for our broadband SC-based SM-MIMO scheme, which is capable of operating in a strongly dispersive channel having a long channel impulse response (CIR) at a moderate decoding complexity. Furthermore, our SoD FDE attains a near-capacity performance with the aid of a three-stage concatenated SC-based SM architecture

Successive-relaying-aided decode-and-forward coherent versus noncoherent cooperative multicarrier space–time shift keying

Abstract—Successive-relaying-aided (SR) cooperative multi-carrier (MC) space–time shift keying (STSK) is proposed for frequency-selective channels. We invoke SR to mitigate the typical 50% throughput loss of conventional half-duplex relaying schemes and MC code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) to circumvent the dispersive effects of wireless channels and to reduce the SR-induced interference. The distributed relay terminals form two virtual antenna arrays (VAAs), and the source node (SN) successively transmits frequency-domain (FD) spread signals to one of the VAAs, in addition to directly transmitting to the destination node (DN). The constituent relay nodes (RNs) of each VAA activate cyclic-redundancy-checking-based (CRC) selective decode-and-forward (DF) relaying. The DN can jointly detect the signals received via the SN-to-DN and VAA-to-DN links using a low-complexity single-stream-based joint maximum-likelihood (ML) detector. We also propose a differentially encoded cooperative MC-CDMA STSK scheme to facilitate communications over hostile dispersive channels without requiring channel estimation (CE). Dispensing with CE is important since the relays cannot be expected to altruistically estimate the SN-to-RN links for simply supporting the source. Furthermore, we propose soft-decision-aided serially concatenated recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) and unity-rate-coded (URC) cooperative MC STSK and investigate its performance in both coherent and noncoherent scenarios

Successive-relaying-aided decode-and-forward coherent versus noncoherent cooperative multicarrier space–time shift keying

Abstract—Successive-relaying-aided (SR) cooperative multi-carrier (MC) space–time shift keying (STSK) is proposed for frequency-selective channels. We invoke SR to mitigate the typical 50% throughput loss of conventional half-duplex relaying schemes and MC code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA) to circumvent the dispersive effects of wireless channels and to reduce the SR-induced interference. The distributed relay terminals form two virtual antenna arrays (VAAs), and the source node (SN) successively transmits frequency-domain (FD) spread signals to one of the VAAs, in addition to directly transmitting to the destination node (DN). The constituent relay nodes (RNs) of each VAA activate cyclic-redundancy-checking-based (CRC) selective decode-and-forward (DF) relaying. The DN can jointly detect the signals received via the SN-to-DN and VAA-to-DN links using a low-complexity single-stream-based joint maximum-likelihood (ML) detector. We also propose a differentially encoded cooperative MC-CDMA STSK scheme to facilitate communications over hostile dispersive channels without requiring channel estimation (CE). Dispensing with CE is important since the relays cannot be expected to altruistically estimate the SN-to-RN links for simply supporting the source. Furthermore, we propose soft-decision-aided serially concatenated recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) and unity-rate-coded (URC) cooperative MC STSK and investigate its performance in both coherent and noncoherent scenarios

A universal space-time architecture for multiple-antenna aided systems

In this tutorial, we first review the family of conventional multiple-antenna techniques, and then we provide a general overview of the recent concept of the powerful Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) family based on a universal Space-Time Shift Keying (STSK) philosophy. When appropriately configured, the proposed STSK scheme has the potential of outperforming conventional MIMO arrangements

Structured Dispersion Matrices From Division Algebra Codes for Space-Time Shift Keying

We propose a novel method of constructing Dispersion Matrices (DM) for Coherent Space-Time Shift Keying (CSTSK) relying on arbitrary PSK signal sets by exploiting codes from division algebras. We show that classic codes from Cyclic Division Algebras (CDA) may be interpreted as DMs conceived for PSK signal sets. Hence various benefits of CDA codes such as their ability to achieve full diversity are inherited by CSTSK. We demonstrate that the proposed CDA based DMs are capable of achieving a lower symbol error ratio than the existing DMs generated using the capacity as their optimization objective function for both perfect and imperfect channel estimation

OFDMA/SC-FDMA aided space-time shift keying for dispersive multi-user scenarios

Motivated by the recent concept of Space-Time Shift Keying (STSK) developed for achieving a flexible diversity versus multiplexing gain trade-off, we propose a novel Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)/Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) aided multi-user STSK scheme for frequency-selective channels. The proposed OFDMA/SC-FDMA STSK scheme is capable of providing an improved performance in dispersive channels, while supporting multiple users in a multiple antenna aided wireless system. Furthermore, the scheme has the inherent potential of benefitting from the low-complexity single-stream Maximum-likelihood (ML) detector. Both an uncoded and a sophisticated near-capacity coded OFDMA/SC-FDMA STSK scheme were studied and their performances were compared in multiuser wideband Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) scenarios. Explicitly, OFDMA/SC-FDMA aided STSK exhibits an excellent performance even in the presence of channel impairments due to the frequency-selectivity of wideband channels and proves to be a beneficial choice for high capacity multi-user MIMO systems

Generalized space-time shift keying designed for flexible diversity-, multiplexing- and complexity-tradeoffs

In this paper, motivated by the recent concept of Spatial Modulation (SM), we propose a novel Generalized Space-Time Shift Keying (G-STSK) architecture, which acts as a unified Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) framework. More specifically, our G-STSK scheme is based on the rationale that P out of Q dispersion matrices are selected and linearly combined in conjunction with the classic PSK/QAM modulation, where activating P out of Q dispersion matrices provides an implicit means of conveying information bits in addition to the classic modem. Due to its substantial flexibility, our G-STSK framework includes diverse MIMO arrangements, such as SM, Space-Shift Keying (SSK), Linear Dispersion Codes (LDCs), Space-Time Block Codes (STBCs) and Bell Lab’s Layered Space-Time (BLAST) scheme. Hence it has the potential of subsuming all of them, when flexibly adapting a set of system parameters. Moreover, we also derive the Discrete-input Continuous-output Memoryless Channel (DCMC) capacity for our G-STSK scheme, which serves as the unified capacity limit, hence quantifying the capacity of the class of MIMO arrangements. Furthermore, EXtrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) chart analysis is used for designing our G-STSK scheme and for characterizing its iterative decoding convergence

Detect-and-forward relaying aided cooperative spatial modulation for wireless networks

A novel detect-and-forward (DeF) relaying aided cooperative SM scheme is proposed, which is capable of striking a flexible tradeoff in terms of the achievable bit error ratio (BER), complexity and unequal error protection (UEP). More specifically, SM is invoked at the source node (SN) and the information bit stream is divided into two different sets: the antenna index-bits (AI-bits) as well as the amplitude and phase modulation-bits (APM-bits). By exploiting the different importance of the AI-bits and the APM-bits in SM detection, we propose three low-complexity, yet powerful relay protocols, namely the partial, the hybrid and the hierarchical modulation (HM) based DeF relaying schemes. These schemes determine the most appropriate number of bits to be re-modulated by carefully considering their potential benefits and then assigning a specific modulation scheme for relaying the message. As a further benefit, the employment of multiple radio frequency (RF) chains and the requirement of tight inter-relay synchronization (IRS) can be avoided. Moreover, by exploiting the benefits of our low-complexity relaying protocols and our inter-element interference (IEI) model, a low-complexity maximum-likelihood (ML) detector is proposed for jointly detecting the signal received both via the source-destination (SD) and relay-destination (RD) links. Additionally, an upper bound of the BER is derived for our DeF-SM scheme. Our numerical results show that the bound is asymptotically tight in the high-SNR region and the proposed schemes provide beneficial system performance improvements compared to the conventional MIMO schemes in an identical cooperative scenario.<br/