In this paper, the bit error rate (BER) performance of spatial modulation (SM) systems is investigated both theoretically and by simulation in a non-stationary Kronecker-based massive multipleinput-multiple-output (MIMO) channel model in multi-user (MU) scenarios. Massive MIMO SM systems are considered in this paper using both a time-division multiple access (TDMA) scheme and a block diagonalization (BD) based precoding scheme, for different system settings. Their performance is compared with a vertical Bell labs layered space-time (V-BLAST) architecture based system and a conventional channel inversion system. It is observed that a higher cluster evolution factor can result in better BER performance of SM systems due to the low correlation among sub-channels. Compared with the BD-SM system, the SM system using the TDMA scheme obtains a better BER performance but with a much lower total system data rate. The BD-MU-SM system achieves the best trade-off between the data rate and the BER performance among all of the systems considered. When compared with the V-BLAST system and the channel inversion system, SM approaches offer advantages in performance for MU massive MIMO systems.
INDEX TERMSSpatial modulation, massive MIMO, bit error rate, block diagonalization precoding, non-stationary Kronecker-based channel model. YU FU received the B.Sc. degree in computer science from Huaqiao University, Fujian, China, in 2009, the M.Sc. degree in information technology (mobile communications) from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K., in 2010, and the Ph.D. degree in wireless communications from Heriot-Watt University, in 2015. He has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate of Heriot-Watt University, since 2015. His main research interests include advanced MIMO communication technologies, wireless channel modeling and simulation, RF tests, and software defined networks.