On the Hardware Reliability of Generalized Space Modulation Techniques

Space modulation techniques (SMTs) are a family of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) transmitter hardware models that have been highlighted for their efficient and cost effective implementations. Moreover, given the added interest in reliability in wireless systems through ultra reliable low latency (URLLC) as an example, recent literature has taken interest in the analysis of reliability of SMT hardware. SMTs however have shown that the requirement to always have a power of two number of antennas can be wasteful when antenna failures occur. Generalized SMTs (GSMTs), on the other hand, provide an alternative implementation approach where an arbitrarily number of antennas is deployed which can reduce waste and maintain higher spectral efficiency values for longer. As such, this work extends on the analysis of SMTs to compare them to GSMTs from a reliability aspect. It is revealed that except for one of the techniques, not much advantage is gained from a reliability or availability perspective by switching to GSMTs.