Spatial Modulation: A Comparison of maximum receiver ratio combining and maximum likelihood detectors

The Receiver of the newly discovered Multiple antenna transmission system Spatial Modulation (SM) is analyzed based on Maximum Receiver Ratio Combining (MRRC) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) detectors. The performance of the receivers is analyzed based on Transmission antenna number (N_t) and Receiver antenna number (N_r). Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is applied to SM. Independent and identical distributed (i.i.d) Rayleigh Channel conditions are used to plot the Bit Error Rate (BER) against Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) with a BER target of 10^-3. It is shown that ML outperforms MRRC.