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

Dispensing with channel estimation: differentially modulated cooperative wireless communications

As a benefit of bypassing the potentially excessive complexity and yet inaccurate channel estimation, differentially encoded modulation in conjunction with low-complexity noncoherent detection constitutes a viable candidate for user-cooperative systems, where estimating all the links by the relays is unrealistic. In order to stimulate further research on differentially modulated cooperative systems, a number of fundamental challenges encountered in their practical implementations are addressed, including the time-variant-channel-induced performance erosion, flexible cooperative protocol designs, resource allocation as well as its high-spectral-efficiency transceiver design. Our investigations demonstrate the quantitative benefits of cooperative wireless networks both from a pure capacity perspective as well as from a practical system design perspective

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

A virtual MIMO dual-hop architecture based on hybrid spatial modulation

International audienceIn this paper, we propose a novel Virtual Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (VMIMO) architecture based on the concept of Spatial Modulation (SM). Using a dual-hop and Decode-and-Forward protocol, we form a distributed system, called Dual-Hop Hybrid SM (DH-HSM). DH-HSM conveys information from a Source Node (SN) to a Destination Node (DN) via multiple Relay Nodes (RNs). The spatial position of the RNs is exploited for transferring information in addition to, or even without, a conventional symbol. In order to increase the performance of our architecture, while keeping the complexity of the RNs and DN low, we employ linear precoding using Channel State Information (CSI) at the SN. In this way, we form a Receive-Spatial Modulation (R-SM) pattern from the SN to the RNs, which is able to employ a centralized coordinated or a distributed uncoordinated detection algorithm at the RNs. In addition, we focus on the SN and propose two regularized linear precoding methods that employ realistic Imperfect Channel State Information at the Transmitter. The power of each precoder is analyzed theoretically. Using the Bit Error Rate (BER) metric, we evaluate our architecture against the following benchmark systems: 1) single relay; 2) best relay selection; 3) distributed Space Time Block Coding (STBC) VMIMO scheme; and 4) the direct communication link. We show that DH-HSM is able to achieve significant Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) gains, which can be as high as 10.5 dB for a very large scale system setup. In order to verify our simulation results, we provide an analytical framework for the evaluation of the Average Bit Error Probability (ABEP)

Simultaneous Estimation of Multi-Relay MIMO Channels

This paper addresses training-based channel estimation in distributed amplify-and-forward (AF) multi-input multi-output (MIMO) multi-relay networks. To reduce channel estimation overhead and delay, a training algorithm that allows for simultaneous estimation of the entire MIMO cooperative network’s channel parameters at the destination node is proposed. The exact Cram´er- Rao lower bound (CRLB) for the problem is presented in closedform. Channel estimators that are capable of estimating the overall source-relay-destination channel parameters at the destination are also derived. Numerical results show that while reducing delay, the proposed channel estimators are close to the derived CRLB over a wide range of signal-to-noise ratio values and outperform existing channel estimation methods. Finally, extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed training method and channel estimators can be effectively deployed in combination with cooperative optimization algorithms to significantly enhance the performance of AF relaying MIMO systems in terms of average-bit-error-rate