Message passing receivers for large-scale multiuser media-based modulation

In this paper, we consider the problem of low-complexity detection and channel estimation in multiuser media-based modulation (MBM). MBM is an attractive modulation scheme which can achieve high data rates using multiple radio frequency (RF) mirrors (parasitic elements) and fewer transmit antennas/RF chains. A large-scale multiuser system with tens of users and a base station with tens to hundreds of receive antennas is considered. Each user employs MBM for transmission using one transmit antenna surrounded by multiple RF mirrors. We propose message passing based detection algorithms which provide very good bit error performance at low computational complexities. For the proposed message passing detection, we present a low-complexity channel estimation scheme exploiting the `channel hardening' phenomenon that occurs in large MIMO channels. We compare the performance of the proposed receiver algorithms with that of the minimum mean square error based receiver and compressive sensing based reconstruction algorithms, and show that the proposed algorithms are not only computationally less complex but also provide better performance in large-scale multiuser MBM systems.