Antenna selection for unitary space-time modulation

This correspondence studies receive antenna selection (AS) for multiple-antenna systems that employ unitary space-time (ST) signals, where the channel state information (CSI) is known neither at the transmitter nor at the receiver. Without CSI at the receiver, we perform AS only at the receiver and the selection is based on a maximum-norm criterion, i.e., a subset of receive antennas that have the largest received signal power is chosen. Using a Chernoff bound approach, we present theoretical performance analysis based on the pairwise error probability (PEP) and quantify the asymptotic performance at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by giving the diversity and coding gain expressions. We prove that with no CSI at the receiver, the diversity gain with AS is preserved for unitary ST codes with full spatial diversity, the same as the case with known CSI. As a concrete example, for differential unitary ST modulation with M = 2 transmit antennas and N = 2 receive antennas, we have devised new excellent-performing parametric codes based on the derived PEP bound. The new codes, which are specifically designed for differential AS systems, outperform known differential codes when AS is employed. Corroborating simulations validate our analysis and code design.