Blind Detection for Spatial Modulation Systems Based on Clustering

In this letter, we propose a pair of blind detectors for spatial modulation multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems based on the clustering concept. Specifically, an improved K-means clustering (KMC) with lower-complexity detector is first proposed to avoid the error floor effects and to reduce the imposed complexity of the conventional KMC detector by employing an initial centroid optimizer. Furthermore, an affinity propagation (AP) detector is developed based on the belief propagation concept, where the number of clusters is not required in the clustering process by using the intelligence information exchanges. The results show that the proposed KMC detector can efficiently avoid the occurrence of error floor effects, while the proposed AP detector is capable of achieving better performance than that of the conventional KMC detector.