Offset Spatial Modulation and Offset Space Shift Keying: Efficient Designs for Single-RF MIMO Systems

Abstract

Spatial modulation (SM) and space shift keying (SSK) techniques have the unique advantages of their single-radio-frequency (RF) structures compared with conventional multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) techniques. However, the transmission rates of these techniques are decided by the maximal switching frequency or by the minimal switching time between the RF chain and transmit antennas, which has been a bottleneck for their applications in future broadband wireless communications. To alleviate this problem, we propose a class of novel offset SM (OSM) and offset SSK (OSSK) schemes, with the aid of channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter. Compared with conventional SM and SSK, the proposed OSM and OSSK schemes can reduce the switching frequency of the RF chain, by introducing an offset between the connected RF chain and the index of the spatial modulated antenna. In extreme conditions, the proposed OSM and OSSK can work without RF switching while maintaining the single-RF advantage of conventional SM and SSK schemes. Through theoretical analysis, we also develop the bit-error rate (BER) performance bounds for the proposed two schemes. Finally, our simulation results demonstrate that the proposed OSM and OSSK outperform their counterparts, including conventional SM, SSK, CSI-aided SM, and CSI-aided SSK, while having a simplified RF-switching structure.