Labeling Diversity for Media-Based Space-Time Block Coded Spatial Modulation

Media-based space-time block coded spatial modulation (MBSTBC-SM) combines the advantages of media-based modulation (MBM) and STBC-SM. Meanwhile, labelling diversity (LD) has been applied to STBC-SM and improve the error performance. Hence, this paper proposes the application of LD to MBSTBC-SM in the form of MBSTBC-SM-LD over a fast, frequency-flat Rayleigh fading channel, without channel estimation. The proposed MBSTBC-SM-LD demonstrates an improved average bit error rate (BER) performance over MBSTBC-SM and STBC-SM. For example, a 4 × 4, m_rf = 2 MBSTBC-SM-LD demonstrates a 2 dB gain in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over MBSTBC-SM. Furthermore, the analytical framework for the union bound on the average BER of MBSTBC-SM-LD is formulated, and validates the Monte Carlo simulation results for the MBSTBC-SM system over a fast, frequency-flat Rayleigh fading channel. In addition, a low-complexity detector, which is able to achieve 73% reduction in computational complexity of MBSTBC-SM-LD, while maintaining a near-ML error performance is proposed.