Analytical SER Performance Bound of M-QAM MIMO System with ZF-SIC Receiver

The multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technique, combined with multi-level quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM), has been considered a potential scheme for high data rate transmission in next generation mobile communication systems. In this paper, the symbol error rate (SER) of M-QAM MIMO system based on spatial multiplexing is analyzed and closed-form results are given under rich scattering Rayleigh fading channel for zero-forcing (ZF) receiver and zero-forcing perfect successive interference cancellation (ZF-PSIC) receiver. Furthermore, these two precise analytical SER expressions are taken as the upper bound and lower bound of zero-forcing successive interference cancellation (ZF-SIC) receiver without optimal ordering. Monte Carlo simulations validate the analytical results and prove the conclusions.