Polar coded space–time block coded spatial modulation based on Plotkin's construction for coded cooperative networks

Abstract

A Plotkin-based polar coded space–time spatial modulation scheme is proposed and its bit error rate (BER) performance over quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel is evaluated. The exacerbated complexity in receiver design is ameliorated by employing a low complexity soft demapper for their proposed Plotkin-based polar coded scheme. As there is a natural split present in the design of the considered Plotkin's construction, therefore the authors effectively extended their proposed scheme to coded-cooperative scenarios. In any coded-cooperative communication, the relay node always plays a pivotal role in determining the BER performance of communication system. Therefore, a rational selection criterion for selecting the information bits at the relay node is presented. The authors have also devised nested polar coded-cooperative space–time spatial modulation (NPCCST-SM) scheme as a useful benchmark. Monte-Carlo simulated results revealed that their proposed coded-cooperative scheme has triumphed conventional NPCCST-SM scheme by a gain of 0.6–0.8 dB under identical conditions. Moreover, the proposed cooperative scheme outperforms its corresponding non-cooperative counterpart scheme by a gain of 1–1.2 dB under identical conditions.