Multiple-Input Multiple-Output OFDM With Index Modulation: Low-Complexity Detector Design

Multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing with index modulation (MIMO-OFDM-IM), which provides a flexible trade-off between spectral efficiency and error performance, is recently proposed as a promising transmission technique for energy-efficient 5G wireless communications systems. However, due to the dependence of subcarrier symbols within each subblock and the strong interchannel interference, it is challenging to detect the transmitted data effectively while imposing low computational burden to the receiver. In this paper, we propose two types of low-complexity detectors based on the sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) theory for the detection of MIMO-OFDM-IM signals. The first detector draws samples independently at the subblock level, while the second detector draws samples at the subcarrier level with further reduced complexity. To meet the constraint of the subcarrier combinations within each subblock, the second detector is further coupled with a carefully designed legality examination method. Attributed to the effectiveness of legality examination and deterministic SMC sampling, both proposed detectors achieve near-optimal error performance for the MIMO-OFDM-IM system.