Performance Analysis of Differential Spatial Modulation with Two Transmit Antennas

Differential spatial modulation (DSM) is favorable in practice since it can offer a better tradeoff between reception reliability and system complexity in comparison with coherent spatial modulation (SM). In this letter, the bit error probability (BEP) performance of a point-to-point communication system, in which DSM is adopted at a transmitter equipped with two antennas, is analyzed. A general expression for an upper bound on the average BEP (ABEP) achieved by the system under Rayleigh fading channels is derived. Moreover, a closed-form ABEP and an asymptotic analysis are provided for BPSK signaling. The derived analytical results verify that DSM leads to a less than 3dB signal-to-noise power ratio penalty with respect to coherent SM while maintaining the same data rate of 2bit/s/Hz.