Subcarrier-Index Modulated Multicarrier Space-Time Shift Keying: Achievable Rate, Performance, and Design Guidelines

Multicarrier (MC) space-time shift keying (STSK) relying on the concept of subcarrier-index modulated orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (SIM-OFDM) is proposed. In conventional MC-STSK system, the performance erosion of STSK in dispersive channels is mitigated by employing OFDM. The SIM-OFDM aided MC-STSK activates a specified limited number of subcarriers for transmitting the STSK codewords. The indices of the activated subcarriers provide additional multiplexing gain. A new receiver architecture, which uses the single-stream maximum-likelihood (ML) detector of STSK and the subcarrier activation principle of SIM-OFDM, is designed. A soft decision logarithmic likelihood ratio (LLR) based detector is also conceived. Helpful design guidelines are provided for the system. The achievable rate, complexity, and performance of the system are analytically quantified and verified with the aid of numerical simulations. The system is capable of overcoming the impairments imposed by wideband channels, is benefited from index modulation as well as from STSK. The scheme exhibits an improved error performance compared to the classic OFDM-based STSK as a result of the more reliable detection of the subcarrier index bits.