Performance of spatial modulation in the presence of channel estimation errors

Abstract

This work investigates the negative effects of channel estimation errors on the performance of spatial modulation (SM) when operating over flat Rayleigh fading channels. The pairwise error probability of the SM scheme is derived in the presence of channel estimation errors and an upper bound on the average bit error probability is evaluated for M-PSK and M-QAM signalling. It is shown via computer simulations that the derived upper bound becomes very tight with increasing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the SM scheme is quite robust to channel estimation errors.