Index modulation for next-generation wireless networks.

Doctoral Degree, University of KwaZulu- Natal, Durban.The desirability of high throughput and superior system performance for multimedia services requires schemes that can achieve high spectral efficiency. However, this imposes high system/hardware complexity due to the large number of antennas required at the transmitter. This led to the development of several innovative multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques in the research community, such as generalized spatial modulation (GSM). GSM is a spatial modulation (SM) based scheme, which employs transmit antenna combinations coupled with identical symbols to convey additional information. This made the use of multiple transmit antennas possible in index modulation, improving the setback/limitation of hardware complexity experienced in the conventional MIMO and SM schemes. Furthermore, in the literature, an improved spectral efficient quadrature spatial modulation (QSM) based scheme termed generalized quadrature spatial modulation (GQSM) is proposed. In GQSM, the antennas at the transmitter are divided into groups and a unique symbol is employed across multi-active transmit antenna groups. Hence, GQSM requires less transmit antennas to achieve a high data rate when compared to its counterparts. However, GQSM requires multiple radio frequency (RF) chains, considering unique symbols are employed in each transmit antenna group. This motivates us to investigate single-symbol GQSM (SS-GQSM), which employs identical symbols across each group requiring a single RF chain. Recently, the application of RF mirrors termed media-based modulation (MBM) was introduced to the research community as a technique to enhance the spectral efficiency at a reduced hardware complexity. This motivates us to investigate MBM with single-symbol GSM to enhance its error performance and to mitigate the drawback of the requirement of multiple RF chains. In addition, link adaptation has been stated in literature as a technique, which can enhance the performance of a single-input multiple-output (SIMO)/MIMO scheme. MBM achieves a high data rate coupled with enhanced system performance. However, to the author's best knowledge, link adaptation has not been investigated with MBM. This motivates us to propose an adaptive algorithm that employs different candidate transmission modes to enhance the reliability of the SIMO system. The proposed scheme is called adaptive SIMOMBM (ASIMOMBM). Lately, two-way cooperative relaying has been proven as a spectral efficient relaying system. This technique employs two or more source nodes, which transmit information to the relay node simultaneously. Considering the advantages of GQSM stated earlier, this motivates us to investigate two-way decode-and-forward relaying for the GQSM scheme to improve the error performance of the conventional GQSM system