IEEE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 2, NO.

6, DECEMBER 2013 663

Unied Error Performance Analysis of Space Shift Keying Modulation
for MISO and MIMO Systems Under Generalized Fading
Kostas P. Peppas, Member, IEEE, Martin Zamkotsian, Fotis Lazarakis, and Panayotis G. Cottis
AbstractThe performance of space shift keying modulation is
strongly affected by the signal envelopes as well as by the channel
induced phase variations. Motivated by this fact, this letter has a
twofold motivation: 1) to propose a Hankel transform approach
to transform the average error-rate integral for a Multiple-Input-
Single-Output system with Maximum-Likelihood detection and
perfect Channel State Information into the Hankel transform
domain using Parseval theorem; 2) to derive simple analytical
expressions for the Average Bit Error Probability of a generic
Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output wireless system employing space
shift keying modulation, by using an accurate exponential bound
for the Gaussian Q-function along with the theory of Hankel
transforms; Both methods, require only the knowledge of the
Hankel transform of the probability density function of the signal
envelope, which is readily available. The proposed analysis is
tested and veried by numerically evaluated results accompanied
with Monte-Carlo simulations.
Index TermsAverage bit error probability, Hankel trans-
form, multiple-input-single-output (MISO) systems, multiple-
input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems, space shift keying (SSK)
modulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
S
PATIAL Modulation (SM) has recently emerged as
a promising candidate for low-complexity modulation
schemes and transceiver architectures for Multiple-Input-
Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems that require a medium/high
transmission rate [1], [2]. An important aspect of space mod-
ulation is the so-called Space Shift Keying (SSK) modulation
[3] which employs multiple antennas. According to SSK, the
incoming bitstream is encoded into the index of the unique
antenna each time switched on for transmission while the
others are switched off.
The performance analysis of SM systems over fading chan-
nels has been addressed in many recent works. Representative
examples can be found in [4][8] and references therein. In
particular, in [5], it was pointed out that the Average Bit
Error Probability (ABEP) of SSK modulation depends on both
signal envelopes and phases rather than just on envelopes.
This feature motivates the need for new frameworks for the
performance analysis of SSK systems. Such frameworks were
presented in [4] and [5] under Rician and Nakagami-m fading,
respectively.
Manuscript received June 4, 2013. The associate editor coordinating the
review of this letter and approving it for publication was Y. Chen.
K. P. Peppas, M. Zamkotsian, and F. Lazarakis are with the Laboratory of
Wireless Communications, Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications,
National Centre for Scientic ResearchDemokritos, Patriarhou Grigoriou
and Neapoleos, Agia Paraskevi, 15310, Athens, Greece (e-mail: {kpeppas,
mzamko, az}@iit.demokritos.gr).
M. Zamkotsian and P. G. Cottis are with the National Technical University
of Athens, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 15773, Athens,
Greece (e-mail: pcottis@central.ntua.gr).
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/WCL.2013.091213.130404
In this letter, assuming uniformly distributed phases and
statistically independent envelopes, a new unied analytical
framework for the ABEP evaluation of MISO and MIMO SSK
systems, operating over generalized fading environments, is
proposed. Specically, for MISO systems, the Parseval theo-
rem is employed in order to transform the error integral into
the Hankel transform domain. For MIMO systems, combining
the accurate exponential bound for the Gaussian Q-function
proposed in [9] with the theory of Hankel transforms, accurate
approximate expressions are obtained for the ABEP of SSK
modulation, using a Moments Generating Function (MGF)-
based approach. Since the Hankel transform of the proba-
bility density function (PDF) of the fading envelope can be
expressed analytically, the resulting solutions are both general
and accurate. The proposed methods are then employed to
determine the ABEP of SSK MISO and MIMO receivers under
Extended Generalized-K (EGK) fading [10]. Simplications
for some special fading distributions such as Generalized-K
fading and Nakagami-m fading are also derived.
Notations: =

1, | | is the magnitude of a complex

number, () is the gamma function [11, Eq. (8.310/1)],
E denotes expectation, (a, x, b, )
_

x
t
a1
exp(t
bt

)dt is the extended incomplete Gamma function [10],

J
a
() is the Bessel function of the rst kind and order a
[11, Eq. (8.402)], I
a
() is the modied Bessel function of
the rst kind and order a [11, Eq. (8.406)], H
k,R
{f(r)}
_

0
rJ
k
(Rr)f(r)dr is the k-th order Hankel transform of
function f(r) [12, Eq. (9.11)], H
m,n
p,q
[] is the Foxs H-
function [13, Eq. (8.3.1)], G
m,n
p,q
[] is the Meijers G-function
[11, Eq. (9.301)], F
(n)
A
(a, {b

}
n
=1
; {c

}
n
=1
; {z

}
n
=1
) is the
Lauricella hypergeometric function of n variables [13, Eq.
7.2.4.12], Q(x) = 1/

2
_

x
exp(t
2
/2)dt is the Gaussian
Q-function, erfc(x) = 2Q(

2x) is the complementary error

function and
p
F
q
() is the generalized hypergeometric function
[11, Eq. (9.14.1)]. The PDF of the random variable (RV) X
is denoted as f
X
() and its corresponding MGF as M
X
().
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION
According to [4], the ABEP of a 2N
r
MIMO system with
Maximum-Likelihood Detection and perfect Channel State
Information at the receiver is given from
P =
_

0
Q
_
_
z
_
f
Z
(z)dz (1)
where Z =
_

Nr
=1
|a
2,
exp(
2,
) a
1,
exp(
1,
)|
2
and
a
i,
and
i,
are the envelopes and phases of the link from the
i-th transmit antenna to the -th receive antenna
1
. Moreover,
1
Throughout this analysis and unless otherwise stated, indices i and take
the values i = 1, 2 and = 1, . . . , Nr
2162-2337/13$31.00 c 2013 IEEE
664 IEEE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 2, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2013
= E
s
/4N
0
where E
s
is the average energy transmitted
by each antenna that emits a nonzero signal and N
0
is the
single-sided power spectral density of the Additive White
Gaussian Noise (AWGN). Note that, for the general N
t
N
r
MIMO conguration, (1) can be easily extended to provide
tight ABEP upper bounds, as [4, Eq. (20)].
In the following analysis, a unied framework for the
evaluation of (1) will be developed assuming that (i) the
envelopes a
i,
are statistically independent and arbitrarily
distributed random variables, and (ii) the phases
i,
are
uniformly distributed in [0, 2).
III. MAIN RESULTS
A. The 2 1 MISO case
When N
r
= 1, the random variable Z in (1), can be
expressed as Z = |r|, with r = a
2
exp(
2
) a
1
exp(
1
).
2
It can be observed that r is the sum of two random vectors
X
i
= a
i
exp(
i
), with
1
=
1
+ and
2
=
2
. Since
1
(modulo 2) is also uniformly distributed in [0, 2), the PDF
of |r| can be be obtained from [14, Eq. (10)] as
f
|r|
(r) = r
_

0
RJ
0
(Rr)
2

i=1
H
0,R
_
f
ai
(r)
r
_
dR (2)
In general, the PDF of |r| cannot be expressed in closed form;
therefore, the evaluation of (1) using a PDF-based approach
is very complicated. The key point to the proposed solution
is the reformulation of the error probability expression in the
Hankel transform domain. Specically, by making use of the
Parseval theorem [12, Eq. (9.25)], (1) is written as
P =
_

0
RH
0,R
{Q(r
_
)}H
0,R
_
f
|r|
(r)
r
_
dR (3)
By expressing the Gaussian Q-function as Q(x) =
0.5erfc(x/

2) and using [15, Eq. (2.12.49.2)] along with the

identity
2
F
2
(a, b; a, c; z) =
1
F
1
(b; c; z), the following Hankel
transform pair is derived
H
0,R
_
Q(r
_
)
_
=
1
4
1
F
1
_
3
2
, 2,
R
2
2
_
(4)
Note that (4) can be further expressed in terms of exponentials
and modied Bessel functions using the identity [13, Eq.
(7.11.2.28)]
1
F
1
(1.5, 2, x) = exp(0.5x)(I
0
(0.5x)+I
1
(0.5x)).
Moreover, obtaining the Hankel transform of f
|r|
(r)/r
appearing in (3) becomes straightforward by applying the
denition of the Hankel transform on (2). The result is
H
0,R
_
f
|r|
(r)
r
_
=
2

i=1
H
0,R
_
f
ai
(r)
r
_
(5)
As it will become evident later on, closed-form expressions
for the Hankel transform of f
ai
(r)/r can be derived for many
realistic fading models. Thus, P can be easily evaluated by
substituting (5) and (4) into (3) and performing symbolic or
numerical integration.
2
It is noted that since a MISO system is considered, the subscript in both
a
i,
and
i,
can be ignored.
B. The 2 N
r
MIMO case
Using the tight approximation for the Gaussian Q-function
presented in [9, Eq. (14)] (i.e., Q(x)
1
12
e

x
2
2
+
1
4
e

2x
2
3
),
an expression accurately approximating (1) can be deduced as
P
1
12
M
Z
2
_

2
_
+
1
4
M
Z
2
_
2
3
_
(6)
Let us dene the random variables Y

= |r

|
2
with r

=
a
2,
exp(
2,
) a
1,
exp(
1,
). Assuming that Y

are inde-
pendent, the MGF of Z
2
can be expressed as M
Z
2(s) =

Nr
=1
M
Y

(s). The PDF of |r

| can be readily obtained

using (2). Then, by performing a simple transformation of
random variables, an analytical expression for the PDF of Y

is obtained as
f
Y

(y) =
1
2
_

0
RJ
0
(R

y)

(R)dR (7)
where

(R)

2
i=1
H
0,R
_
fa
i,
(r)
r
_
. The MGF of Y

can
be evaluated from
M
Y

(s) =
1
2
_

0
e
sy
__

0
RJ
0
(R

y)

(R)dR
_
dy (8)
Changing the order of integration and using [15, Eq.
(2.12.9.3)], M
Y

(s) is nally obtained as

M
Y

(s) =
1
2s
_

0
Rexp
_

R
2
4s
_

(R)dR (9)
Thus, M
Z
2 (s) and henceforth P can be readily evaluated.
IV. ERROR PERFORMANCE OF SSK OVER MISO AND
MIMO GENERALIZED FADING CHANNELS
In this section, the proposed analytical framework is em-
ployed to derive analytical results for the performance of
SSK over MISO and MIMO generalized fading channels.
Three fading models are addressed, namely the Extended
Generalized-K, the Generalized-K and the Nakagami-m fad-
ing models. It is shown that the Hankel transform of the
corresponding fading envelopes can be derived in closed-form;
hence the ABEP can be readily evaluated using (3), or (6)
along with (9).
A. Extended Generalized-K fading channels
The Extended Generalized-K (EGK) distribution, where
both shadowing (large-scale) and multipath fading (small-
scale) components are modeled as generalized-gamma random
processes, has been recently proposed to model fading in
wireless millimeter wave (60 GHz and above) and free-space
optical channels [10]. The PDF of the fading envelopes a
i,
can be expressed as [10, Eq. (2)]
f
a
i,
(r) =

i,
(m
i,
)(m
s,i,
)
_
b
i,
b
s,i,

i,
_
m
i,

i,
2
r
m
i,

i,
1

_
_
m
s,i,

m
i,

i,

s,i,
, 0, r

i,
_
b
i,
b
s,i,

i,
_
m
i,

i,
2
,

i,

s,i,
_
_
(10)
PEPPAS et al.: UNIFIED ERROR PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF SPACE SHIFT KEYING MODULATION FOR MISO AND MIMO SYSTEMS . . . 665
P =
m
1
m
2
2
1
m
2
+ 2
2
m
1
+ 4m
1
m
2
F
(3)
A
_
1,
1
2
, 1 m
1
, 1 m
2
; 2, 1, 1;
2m
1
m
2

1
m
2
+
2
m
1
+ 2m
1
m
2
,

1
m
2

1
m
2
+
2
m
1
+ 2m
1
m
2
,

2
m
1

1
m
2
+
2
m
1
+ 2m
1
m
2
_ (17)
where m
i,
(0.5 < m
i,
< ) and
i,
(0 <
i,
< )
represent the fading severity and the fading shaping fac-
tor, respectively, m
s,i,
(0.5 < m
s,i,
< ) and
s,i,
(0 <
s,i,
< ) represent the shadowing severity and the
shadowing shaping factor, respectively, and
i,
= Ea
2
i,
.
Moreover, b
i,
=

m
i,
+
2

i,

(m
i,
)
and b
s,i,
=

m
s,i,
+
2

s,i,

(m
s,i,
)
.
Utilizing [16, Eq. (1.53)], f
a
i,
(r) can be also expressed in
terms of the Foxs H-function as
f
a
i,
(r) =
2r
1
(m
i,
)(m
s,i,
)
H
2,0
0,2
_
b
s,i,
b
i,
r
2

i,

_
(11)
where

=
__
m
i,
,
2

i,
_
,
_
m
s,i,
,
2

s,i,
__
. The zeroth
order Hankel transform of f
a
i,
(r)/r can be derived in closed-
form using [13, Eq. (2.25.3.2)] as
3
H
0,R
_
f
a
i,
(r)
r
_
=
H
2,1
2,2
_
4b
s,i,
b
i,
R
2

i,

(1,1), (1,1)

_
(m
i,
)(m
s,i,
)
(12)
B. Generalized-K fading channels
The Generalized-K fading model is readily obtained from
(11) setting the fading shaping factor
i,
2 and the
shadowing shaping factor
s,i,
2. Employing [13, Eq.
(8.4.1.21)], (12) yields
H
0,R
_
f
a
i,
(r)
r
_
=
G
2,1
2,2
_
4m
s,i,
m
i,
R
2

i,

1, 1
m
i,
,m
s,i,
_
(m
i,
)(m
s,i,
)
(13)
Finally, using the identity [13, Eq. (8.4.49.13)]
2
F
1
(a
1
, a
2
;
b; x) =
(b)
(a1)(a2)
G
1,2
2,2
_
x

1a1, 1a2
0,1b
_
along with [13, Eq.
(8.2.2.14)], (13) can be further expressed in terms of the more
familiar hypergeometric function as
H
0,R
_
f
a
i,
(r)
r
_
=
2
F
1
_
m
i,
, m
s,i,
; 1;

i,
R
2
4m
i,
, m
s,i,
_
(14)
C. Nakagami-m fading channels
The Nakagami-mfading model is obtained from (11) setting

i,
2,
s,i,
2 and (m
s,i,
). In this case, it is easy
to show that H
0,R
{f
a
i,
(r)/r} reduces to a known result [19,
Eq. (42)]. Specically, using the identity [13, Eq. (7.2.2.13)]
1
F
1
(a, b, z) = lim
x2
F
1
_
a, x; b,
z
x
_
, (14) can be further
simplied as
H
0,R
_
f
a
i,
(r)
r
_
=
1
F
1
_
m
i,
; 1;

i,
R
2
4m
i,
_
(15)
3
Note that, in two recent works numerically efcient methods to evaluate
this special function have been developed, using Matlab [17, Table 2]
and Mathematica [18, Appendix A]. Both methods are based on [13, eq.
(8.3.2/22)].
In the following analysis, a new closed form expression for
the ABEP of SSK for 2 1 MISO systems operating over
Nakagami-m fading channels will be derived. Moreover, a
closed-form expression for M
Y

(s) given by (9), will be

derived. The latter formula can be used along with (6) to obtain
accurate closed form approximations to the ABEP of 2 N
r
MIMO SSK systems operating under Nakagami-m fading.
The ABEP of 2 1 MISO systems can be obtained by
substituting (15) and (4) into (3) as
P =
1
4
_

0
1
F
1
_
3
2
, 2,
R
2
2
_

i=1
_
1
F
1
_
m
i
; 1;

i
4m
i
R
2
__
RdR
(16)
By applying the Kummer transformation for the conuent hy-
pergeometric function, i.e.
1
F
1
(a; b; x) = exp(x)
1
F
1
(b
a; b; x) [13, Eq. (7.11.1.2)] along with [11, Eq. (9.220/2)] and
[11, Eq. (7.622/3)], P can be expressed in closed form as in
(17), on top of this page
4
. Furthermore, by substituting (15)
to (9) and using [11, Eq. (7.622/1)], M
Y

(s) can be derived

in closed-form as
5
M
Y

(s) =
_
m
1,
m
1,
+
1,
s
_
m
1,
_
m
2,
m
2,
+
2,
s
_
m
2,

2
F
1
_
m
1,
, m
2,
; 1;

1,

2,
s
2
(m
1,
+
1,
s)(m
2,
+
2,
s)
_
(18)
V. NUMERICAL AND COMPUTER SIMULATION RESULTS
Various numerically evaluated results accompanied with
computer simulations are presented in this section in order to
validate the accuracy of the analytical framework developed
in Sections III, IV. Fig. 1 depicts the ABEP of 2 1 MISO
and 2 2 MIMO systems operating over EGK fading, with
m
s,i,
= m
s
,
s,i,
=
s
, assuming m
1,
= 3.3,
1,
= 2.1,
m
2,
= 1.3,
2,
= 3.1,
1,
= 10 and
2,
= 1, for various
values of m
s
and
s
. As expected, the ABEP performance
improves as either m
s
or
s
increase. Moreover, as expected,
a MIMO conguration always outperforms a MISO one, since
the diversity gain of SSK is equal to the number of receive
antennas, N
r
[7]. Furthermore, it can be observed that the
ABEP curves match well the square patterns sign obtained
via simulations, thus verifying the correctness of the proposed
mathematical analysis.
For the same set of values of m
i,
, and
i,
and assuming
m
s,1,
= m
s,2,
= k, Fig. 2 depicts the ABEP of 2 1 MISO
and 22 MIMO systems operating over generalized-K fading
4
A computer program for the efcient implementation of the Lauricella
F
A
hypergeometric function is available in [20, Appendix B, p. 295].
5
Using [13, Eq. (8.4.49.13)], [5, Eq. (20)] can be simplied as (18), thus
verifying the correctness of the proposed analysis.
666 IEEE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, VOL. 2, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 1. ABEP of SSK for 21 MISO and 22 MIMO EGK channels as a
function of Es/N
0
assuming m
s,i,
= ms,
s,i,
= s, for various values
of ms and s. Simulation Parameters: m
1,
= 3.3,
1,
= 2.1, m
2,
= 1.3,

2,
= 3.1,
1,
= 10,
2,
= 1.
Fig. 2. ABEP of SSK for 2 1 MISO and 2 2 MIMO Generalized-
K channels as a function of Es/N
0
for various values of k. Simulation
Parameters: m
1,
= 3.3, m
2,
= 1.3,
1,
= 10,
2,
= 1.
channels. Different values of k are considered to account
for three shadowing scenarios. These scenarios correspond to
Loos model (refer to [21] and references therein), to account
for different degrees of shadowing. The limiting case of
Nakagami-m channels, i.e. when k , is also considered.
As for the correctness of the proposed framework, similar
conclusions to those reported in Fig. 1 are deduced.
VI. CONCLUSION
Using the theory of Hankel transforms, a comprehensive
framework was presented for the error performance analysis
of MISO and MIMO SSK systems over generalized fading
channels, assuming uniformly distributed phases and statis-
tically independent envelopes. The proposed framework can
handle various fading distributions provided that the Hankel
transform of the received envelope is readily available. Finally,
of particular interest is the application of the proposed scheme
when non-uniformly distributed phases are considered, which
is left to a future contribution.
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