IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 12, NO.
8, AUGUST 2008
Spatial Modulation: Optimal Detection and Performance Analysis
Jeyadeepan Jeganathan, Ali Ghrayeb, and Leszek Szczecinski
AbstractIn this letter, we derive the optimal detector for the
so-called spatial modulation (SM) system introduced by Mesleh
et al. in [1]. The new detector performs significantly better than
the original ( 4 dB gain), and we support our results by deriving
a closed form expression for the average bit error probability.
As well, we show that SM with the optimal detector achieves
performance gains ( 1.5 3 dB) over popular multiple antenna
systems, making it an excellent candidate for future wireless
communication standards.
Index TermsAntenna modulation, maximum likelihood de-
tection, MIMO, spatial modulation.
I. I NTRODUCTION
U SING multiple antennas in wireless communications
allows unprecedented improvements over current sys-
tems. Large spectral efficiency is obtained by using trans-
mission techniques designed for multiple input multiple out-
put (MIMO) systems, such as the vertical Bell Laboratories
layered space-time (V-BLAST) architecture [2]. Due to inter-
channel interference (ICI) caused by coupling multiple sym-
bols in time and space, maximum likelihood (ML) detection
increases exponentially in complexity with the number of
transmit antennas. Consequently, avoiding ICI greatly reduces
receiver complexity, and contributes in attaining performance
gains.
The so-called spatial modulation (SM), introduced by
Mesleh et al. in [1], [3], is an effective means to remove
ICI and the need for precise time synchronization amongst
antennas. SM is a pragmatic approach for transmitting infor-
mation, where the modulator uses well known amplitude/phase
modulation (APM) techniques such as phase shift keying
(PSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), but also
employs the antenna index to convey information. Only one
antenna remains active during transmission so that ICI is
avoided, and inter-antenna synchronization (IAS) is no longer
needed as in the case of V-BLAST, where all antennas transmit
at the same time. However, the detector in [1] is sub-optimal,
and hinders the full performance gains achievable by SM.
Contribution: The contribution of this paper is twofold.
We first derive the optimal detector for SM, improving over
the sub-optimal detection rules suggested in [1]. Thanks to
our development, SM compares favorably to other transmis-
sion schemes, such as APM with maximum ratio combining
(MRC), and the well known V-BLAST.
Manuscript received May 13, 2008. The associate editor coordinating the
review of this letter and approving it for publication was M. Uysal. This work
was supported in part by NSERC (Canada) under a Post Graduate Scholarship
(PGS), and by FQRNT (Quebec) under research grant F00803.
J. Jeganathan and A. Ghrayeb are with the ECE Department
at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (e-mail: {j jegana,
aghrayeb}@ece.concordia.ca).
L. Szczecinski is with INRS-EMT, Montreal, Canada (e-mail:
leszek@emt.inrs.ca).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LCOMM.2008.080739.
1089-7798/08$25.00 
c 2008 IEEE
545
Fig. 1. Spatial modulation system model.
Second, in order to support our results, we analyze the
performance of the SM system, and derive a closed form
expression for the bit error probability when real constellations
are used.
Organization: Section II introduces the basic SM system
model, the mapper, and the original detector. In Section III, we
derive the optimal detector, and provide a comprehensive look
at its complexity. An in depth analysis of SMs performance
is then provided in Section IV. Section V presents some
simulation results, and we conclude the paper in Section VI.
II. S PATIAL M ODULATION
A. SM Transmission
The general system model is shown in Fig. 1, which
consists of a MIMO wireless link with Nt transmit and
Nr receive antennas.1 A random sequence of indepen-
dent bits b enters the SM mapper, which groups m =
log2 (M Nt ) bits and maps them to a constellation vector
 T
x = x1 x2 xN t , where we assume a power con-
straint of unity (i.e. Ex xH x = 1). In SM, only one antenna
remains active during transmission and hence, only one of the
xj in x is nonzero. The signal is transmitted over an Nr Nt
wireless channel H, and experiences an Nr dim additive T
white Gaussian (AWGN) noise = 1 2 Nr .
The received signal is given by y = Hx + , where is the
average signal to noise ratio (SNR) at each receive antenna,
and H and have independent and identically distributed (iid)
entries according to CN (0, 1).
As mentioned earlier, SM exploits the antenna index as
an additional means to transmit information. The antenna
1 The following notations are used throughout the paper. Italicized symbols
denote scalar values, while bold lower/upper case symbols denote vec-
tors/matrices. We use ()T for transpose, ()H for conjugate transpose, and

for the binomial coefficient. We use || for absolute value of a scalar,

and F for the Frobenius norm of a vector/matrix. We use CN , 2 for
the complex Gaussian distribution
  of a random variable, having independent
Gaussian distributed N , 12 2 real and imaginary parts with mean and
2
variance 2 . We use P () for the probability of an event, pY () for the
probability density function (PDF) of a random variable Y, and Ex [] for
the statistical expectation with respect to x. We use Re {} for the real part
of a complex variable, and X represents a constellation of size M .
546 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 12, NO. 8, AUGUST 2008

combined with the symbol index make up the SM mapper, PDF of y, conditioned on xjq and H. It can be seen that
which outputs a constellation vector of the following form: optimal detection requires a joint detection of the antenna
 T indices and symbols, as opposed to the scheme outlined in
0 0 xq 0 0 Section II-B, where the problem is decoupled.
xjq  ,
j th position

where j represents the activated antenna, and xq is the q th B. Complexity

symbol from the M -ary constellation X . Hence, only the j th
antenna remains active during symbol transmission. Figure 2
in [1] illustrates an example of the mapper and is omitted
here due to space constraints. For example, in 3 bits/s/Hz
transmission with Nt = 4 antennas, the information bits are
mapped to a 1 binary PSK (BPSK) symbol, and transmitted
on one of the four available antennas. The output of the
channel when xq is transmitted from the j th antenna is
expressed as
y = hj xq + , (1)
where hj denotes the j th column of H.
B. SM Detection (Sub-Optimal)
In [1], a sub-optimal detection rule based on MRC is given
by
j = arg max zj (2)
j
q = D (zj ) , (3)
|
hH
j y |
where zj = , j and q represent the estimated antenna
hj 2F
and symbol index, respectively, and D is the constellation
demodulator function. Since the mapping is one to one, the
demapper obtains an estimate of the transmitted bits by taking
j and q as inputs.
We note that the simulation results of [1] could not be
reproduced using the conventional channel assumptions of
Section II. The reason for this can be seen (in the noiseless
case) by substituting (1) for y in (2). Therefore, zj reduces to
|hH
k hj xq |
hk 2F
and, in order to detect the correct antenna index
|hH hj |
(i.e. k = j), we require hk 2 < 1. By invoking Cauchys
k F
inequality to the left hand side, we find that hj F hk F
is a necessary condition for antenna detection without errors,
which should materialize in the absence of noise. One way to
ensure this condition is by normalizing the channel prior to
2
transmission (i.e. hj F = c for all j, where c is a constant).
We refer to these channels as constrained.
To compare the complexity of the optimal detector with
the one given in Section II-B, we use the number of mul-
tiplications required in the detection process. The number
of additions can be shown to have a similar value for both
detectors. The complexity of Meslehs SM detector is obtained
from [1] as2 SM = 2Nr Nt + Nt + f (M ), where the last term
depends on the type of demodulation assumed.
Similar to [1], we analyze (4) to obtain the complexity
of optimal SM detection. It can be shown that the first and
second terms in (4) result in Nr Nt + M and Nr Nt + Nt M
multiplications, respectively (for the first term, we simplified
the computation by splitting hj xq 2F = hj 2F |xq |2 ). Hence,
the total computational complexity for optimal SM detection
is given by SM,opt = 2Nr Nt + Nt M + M .
We observe that the complexity involved between both
detectors is comparable. These results motivate the use of our
optimal SM detector in order to fully exploit SMs advantages.
IV. P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS
The performance of the SM system (with the optimal
detector) is derived using the well known union bounding
technique [4, p. 261-262]. The average bit error rate (BER) in
SM is bounded as

Pe,bit Ex N (q, q)P (xjq xjq )
j,q
Nt M Nt 
M
N (q, q)P (xjq xjq )
= , (5)
j=1 q=1 j=1 q=1
Nt M
where N (q, q) is the number of bits in error between the
symbol xq and xq , and P (xjq xjq ) denotes the pairwise
error probability (PEP) of deciding on the constellation vector
xjq given that xjq is transmitted. By using (4), the PEP
conditioned on H is given by
 
P (xjq xjq | H) = P (djq > djq | H) = Q ,
 
We now derive the optimal detector for SM, where the need 2
where djq = gjq F 2Re yH gjq , and Q (x) =
for constrained channels is not necessary.  1 t2
2 dt. We define as
x 2 e
III. O PTIMAL D ETECTION
Nr

A. SM Detection (Optimal) 
gjq gjq F =
2 2
|A (n) + iB (n)| , (6)
2
Since the channel inputs are assumed equally likely, the n=1
optimal detector is based on the ML principle:
where i = 1 and
[jML , qML ] = arg max pY (y | xjq , H)   
R R I I R R I I
j,q A (n) = 2 hnj xq hnj xq hnj xq + hnj xq
  
2
= arg min gjq F 2Re yH gjq , (4) R I I R R I I R

j,q B (n) = 2 hnj xq + hnj xq hnj xq hnj xq .

where gjq = hj xq , 1 j
Nt , 1 q M , and
 2 2 In [1], the complex multiplications involved with h 2 and || are
pY (y | xjq , H) = Nr exp y Hxjq F is the
j F
ignored, and results in a slightly different SM .
JEGANATHAN et al.: SPATIAL MODULATION: OPTIMAL DETECTION AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS 547

0
10
MRC (APM), Nt=1 bits/s/Hz transmission with Nr = 4 antennas. Figure 2 illus-
MRC (APM), Nt=1
trates the simulation results for both constrained (dotted line)
VBLAST, N =3
1
t
VBLAST, N =3
t
and conventional (solid line) channel assumptions (see Section
10
SM (Mesleh), Nt=4 II-B).
SM (Mesleh), Nt=4
SM (Optimal), Nt=4 For reference, we use two different transmission setups.
2
10
SM (Optimal), N =4
t The first one is APM, 8-QAM transmission with Nt = 1
(single antenna transmission) and M = 8. The second is
SM (Analytical), Nt=4

V-BLAST with BPSK modulation, Nt = 3, and ordered

Pe,bit

conventional H
constrained H
3
10 successive interference cancellation (OSIC) with the minimum
mean squared error (MMSE) receiver [6]. SM with BPSK
and Nt = 4 antennas is shown for both sub-optimal [1] and
4
10 optimal receivers (derived in Section III-A). We also plot the
Pe,bit bound of (8) for SM using BPSK modulation, where
0, q = q
Nt = 4, M = 2, 2 = 2 and N (q, q) = .
5
10 1, q = q
0 5 10
(dB)
15 20
Let us first consider the case of constrained channels (dotted
lines). As shown, the optimal SM detector gains 4 dB at
Fig. 2. BER performance of spatial modulation versus SNR, for m = 3 Pe,bit = 105 over the sub-optimal detector of [1]. Also,
bits/s/Hz transmission (Nr = 4).
(minor) gains are also evident over MRC and V-BLAST, which
is not the case with sub-optimal detection. For the conventional
The superscript R and I denote the real and imaginary part, channel model (solid line), it is shown that optimal SM
respectively, and hnj is the element of H in the nth row, provides performance improvements of 3 dB over APM, and
and j th column. The distribution of the random variable 1 dB over V-BLAST (at Pe,bit = 105 ). As well, we notice
in (6) is not easily obtained since A (n) and B (n) are not, that the derived BER bounds are relatively tight, and support
in general, independent. In this case, the performance can our simulation results.
be evaluated numerically. However, for symbols x drawn
from a real constellation  X , this independence is satisfied VI. C ONCLUSION
2Nr 2
 2

and (6) reduces to = n=1 n where n N 0, In this letter, we derive the optimal SM detector for which,
(|xq |2 +|xq |2 ) significant performance gains are observed over the detector
with 2 = 4 . Hence, is a chi-squared ran-
dom variable with 2Nr degrees of freedom and PDF p (v) in [1]. To support our results, we also derive a closed form
given in [4, p. 41]. expression bounding the average BER of SM when real
 The PEP can then be formulated as
constellations are used. The simulation results indicate that
P (xjq xjq ) = v=0 Q ( v) p (v) dv, which has a closed
form expression given in [5, Eq. (64)]. Thus, SM with optimal detection outperforms V-BLAST and APM
transmission, which makes it a promising candidate for low
N r 1
 
Nr 1 + k complexity transmission techniques.
P (xjq xjq ) = Nr
[1 ]k . (7)
k
k=0

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