Estimation of MIMO Transmit-Antenna Number Using Higher-Order Moments-Based Hypothesis Testing

This letter proposes a higher-order-moment-based hypothesis testing algorithm to estimate the transmit-antenna number for multiple-input multiple-output systems. Exploiting the asymptotic normal distribution of the moments composed by noise eigenvalues, the proposed algorithm improves the estimation performance for low signal-to-noise ratios. Moreover, since the empirical distribution of the moments converges quickly to the normal distribution when the number of samples increases, our algorithm can make a reliable estimation in a sample starved condition. Computer simulations are provided to demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional algorithms.