Combining spatial modulation and VBLAST/STBC for correlated Rayleigh fading channels: Capacity and performance analysis

In this paper, two novel multiple-antenna schemes where the spatial modulation (SM) is combined with the space-time block coding (STBC) and the vertical Bell Laboratories layered space-time (VBLAST) architecture, respectively, are presented for correlated Rayleigh fading channels. The capacities of the proposed schemes are first analyzed and then the union bounds of the average error probability are derived. From the analytical and simulation results, the proposed SM-STBC and SM-VBLAST schemes can achieve transmit diversity gain and higher spectral efficiency, respectively, compared with the conventional SM scheme. Furthermore, both the proposed schemes are more robust to the transmit channel correlation than the conventional SM scheme.