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Transmit Diversity Using

Decision-Directed Antenna Hopping


Robert W. Heath Jr. and Arogyaswami Paulraj
Information Systems Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-9510
e-mail:

(rheath ,paulraj)Ostanf ord. edu

tel: (650) 725-6099

fax: (650) 723-8473

coding and interleaving are used to obtain diversity gaiu


from this artificially created time selective channel. Unfortunately, this requires latency due to the presence of
interleaving and/or possible bandwidth expansion from
the error correction coding. To alleviate these problems
we propose a technique called decision-directed antenna
hopping in which the antenna selected for transmission
is a function of past and present data symbols. Our approach enables us to obtain diversity gain without cotistellation expansion, interleaving, or bandwidth expansion, and without knowledge of the channel at the transmitter.
In this paper we illustrate our idea by designing simple 2, 4, 8, and 16 state decision-directed antenna hopping codes for use with binary phase-shift keying (BPSK)
modulation and a transmitter with two antennas. The
encoder selects the antenna based on the current symbol
while selecting the phase based on some function of the
I. INTRODUCTION
previous symbols. As we are effectively mapping onto
Reliable communication over the fading channel typ- an expanded spatial constellation, our approach is simiically requires the presence of diversity in the system lar in spirit to that in space-time trellis coding [l]. We
to limit the required transmitter power [Z]. Sufficiently analyze performance of the resulting codes using the pairspaced antennas are an attractive means of obtaining ili- wise error probability (PEP). For 4-srate state codes and
vcrsity since t h y do not iucur bandwidth expansion. UII- greater, WO obtain modest codiug gains over simple delay
fortunately, exploiting antenna diversity at the transmit- diversity. Simulation results are presented which show
ter is challenging since the signals are combined in space that our 16-state encoder performs within 3dB of outage
prior t o reception. Further, the transmitter typically does capacity at a frame error rate of ten-percent.
not know the forward channel, consequently, transmitter
11. ANTENNAHOPPING
diversity schemes must employ some sort of additional

Abstmcl- Transmit antenna diversity is a convenient


means of obtaining diversity gain against Rayleigh fading
in wireless systems where the mobile user has a limited
number of antennas. Antenna hopping is one approach
for using transmit antennas t o obtain diversity gain. With
antenna hopping, cyclic or pseudo-random hopping is used
t o transform spatial diversity into time diversity which can
be exploited by appropriate error correction codes and interleaving techniques. Unfortunately, this incurs latency
due to the interleaving requirements and/or possible bandwidth expansion due to the error correction code. To alleviate this problem we propose decision-directed antenna
hopping where the antenna selected for transmission is a
function of the current and past data. This enables diversity gain without constellation expansion, bandwidth
expansion, or interleaving, similar in spirit t o space-time
trellis codes [l]. In this paper we illustrate our idea with
simple 2, 4, 8, and 16 state codes which achieve a rate of
1 b/s/HZ with two transmit antennas. Anaiytieal ealeulations and simulations assuming perfect channel knowledge
are used to characterize performance of these codes.

processing to make the diversity branches available at


the receiver.
In this work we consider a flat-fading channel which is
fixed over a burst but varies in amplitude from burst to
burst according to the Rayleigh distribution. A number
of techniques exist for obtaining diversity benefits from
transmit antennas including delay diversity [3], antenna
hopping [4], phase sweeping, [5] space-time trellis coding
[l],and space-time block coding [SI. Of interest in this
work is antenna hoping. Here spatial selectivity is transformed to time selectivity by hopping across different antennas every few symbols or frames. Error correction
This research was supported by funding from Ericssan, Research
Triangle Park, through the Center for Telecommunications at Stanford University.

0-7803-5653-5/99/$10.M)
D 1999 EEE

Consider the general antenna hopping system illustrated in Fig. 1. For simplicity of exposition, we assume
a single receive antenna; extension t o multiple antennas
follows in a straightforward manner. In this system bit
sequence b ( k ) is coded, interleaved, and modulated to
produce symbol sequence 4 7 1 ) . Each symbol is transmitted on antenna T ( n ) ,where T(n) is the known hopping
sequence ( T ( n )= 1 + transmit on antenna 1, T(71)= 2
--t transmit on antenna 2 ). We assume a system in which
the symbol duration is greater than the inverse channel
coherence bandwidth,
the frame duration is much less than the channel coherence time, and
the antennas are spaced sufficiently far apart to ensure
that each sees an uncorrelated channel (about A12 for mo-

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Fig. 2. A general decision directed antenna hopping system

Pig. 1 . Standard antenna hopping system

biles and 10X for base stations) or multiple polarizations


of the same antenna are available.
These assumptions allow us to model the channel from
antenna i t o the mobile as a complex scalar hi,distributed
N(O,1/2)per dimension, and uncorrelated with hj for
Fig. 3. Example of a decision-directed hopping System
i # j. Further we assume that hi is fixed for a particular frame and is uncorrelated with hj 'djfor other frames
(though our notation does is not explicitly express this dependence). Accounting for Doppler spread due t o motion s(n) become 1 x 1 vectors and/or the constellation of s(n)
of the mobile and channel delay spread will be examined may also be expanded.
Denote the vector of symbols transmitted at time n
in future work.
on
all of the antennas as w(n). To illustrate decisionA standard approach for transmitter diversity is to use
directed
hopping with a practical example, we a s u m e
antenna hopping to transform the spatial selectivity ofBPSK
signaling
and the siniple mapping illustratctl i n
fered by the antennas into time selectivity which can be
Fig.
3;
extensions
to other constellations and mappings
exploited using error correction coding combined with
interleaving [ 2 ] . A simple example of this is to repeat will follow in future work. In Fig. 3 let d denote the
data in two frames, transmitting each frame over a dif- amount of memory and let the current bit b(n) determine
ferent antenna. Antenna hopping has been shown via the transmit antenna ( T ( n )= b ( n ) 1) while the bit
simulations to be effective means of obtaining diversity b ( n - 1) b(n - 2) + ... b(n - d ) mod 2 determines
gain in a GSM system [4] and has been demonstrated the phase (either 0 --t 0 or 1 + n). Essentially we are
in the Smart Antenna Research Group TDMA testbed mapping bit b(n) with memory into the set of vectors
[7]. Unfortunately, this general approach t o hopping re- symbols
quires error correction coding, and thus may incur loss
in bandwidth efficiency. Alternatively, if bandwidth efficient trellis coded modulation is employed, we may incur
a penalty in latency since trellis codes designed for fading We refer to the the elements in W as vector symbols 1
channels typically assume near perfect (i.e., rattier large through 4. The cardinality of W , denoted IWI determines
amounts of) interleaving [a]. To avoid these problems we the size of the constellation seen at the receiver.
Let w(n) E W denote the vector symbol chosen at time
present an approach for joint antenna hopping and coding
n. After matched filtering and sampling,. the received
known as decision-directed antenna hopping.
signal can be written as
111. DECISION-DIRECTED
HOPPING
= G [ h l hz]w(n)
v(n)
(2)
The general idea of decision-directed antenna hopping
is illustrated in Fig. 2. In this figure one or more bits where v(n) is an independent, identically distributed
b(k) are delivered to a coding block which chooses the complex random variable with distribution M ( 0 ,NOIS)
corrcsponding constellation symbol s ( n ) and along with per dimension. At the receiver, the detector chooses the
one of m antennas T ( n ) for transmission at discrete- symbol from the received constellation
time n. The system employs memory so that sequences
{s(n)}tZtand {T(n)}fZ:are jointly related according
to some mapping operation also known to the receiver.
An example mapping would be a rate 1/2 convolutional which has minimum Euclidean distance to s(n). Of
code in which one bit determines the phase of the antenna course, since the encoder has Z d states, the optimum
and the other bit determines one of two possible anten- receiver will decide on the best sequence of transmitted
nas. In general, decision-directed hopping may allow for symbols with the minimum Euclidean distance. From the
mapping onto 1 out of m antenas in which case T(n) and perspective of the receiver, we have mapped bits onto an

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expanded complex 4-PSK constellation whose points are


determined by the channel coefficients hl and hl.
To clarify the role of tlie antenna selection we present
the following example.
Example To see how antenna selection might offer some l 3
some information transfer we digress and consider d =
0 (i.e., the system is memoryless). The phase of each
antenna is assumed to be 0. In this case, the current bit
selects the antenna for transmission at each time instant. 2 4
Assuming perfect channel estimation, the receiver decides
that a 0 was transmitted if it receives hl and a 1 was
transmitted if it receives a hz. The performance of such
as system is obtained as follows.

24

\
13

Fig. 4. (a) 2-state (b) 4-state decision-directed antenna hopping


code, I b/s/Hz

(5)

13

24
13

24

24

24

13

x -

4%

(7)

13

24

13

Equation (4) follows from standard detection theory. In


(5) we let g = (hl - h 2 ) / awhich implies that g is complex N(O,1/2) per dimension. In (6) we evaluate the
expectation and in (7) we present a high SNR approximation. Interestingly, though the spatial constellation has
points hl and R 2 which are randomly chosen, the average
probability of error is equivalent to that of coherently detected BPSK in a single Rayleigh fading channel with no
diversity. This example reveals that (assuming the phase
on both antennas is constant) there is no difference in
average performance between using pure antenna selection to convey information and a simple one-transmit onereceive anteriria system. This also illustrates that without,
a more complex transmitter we should not expect second
order diversity.
0
For d = 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 we obtain the trellis diagrams of the
corresponding 2, 4, 8, and 16 state codes illustrated in
Fig. 4 and Fig. 5. Performance analysis of these coding
schemes follows.
IV. PERFORMANCE
ANALYSIS
Suppose that after some training period a frame of N
symbols W = {w(O),
. . . ,w ( N -l)] is transmitted. Dnring the training period we assume the receiver estimates
the channel coefficients perfectly. To examine error performance we will assume the receiver uses maximum likelihood sequence estimation and thus we will examine the
prohahility of sequence error P,. This is a relevant indi-

13

24
13
24

24

24
13

13

13

24

24

13
13
24

(4

(b)

Fig. 5. (a) 8-state (b) 16-state decision-directed antenna happing


code, 1 b/s/llz

cator of performance since, with a sequence of appropriate length, the probability of sequence error is roughly
the sanie as tlie frame error rate. Since deterniining
P, is difficult in general, we will characterize the performance with the pairwise error probability (PEP) denoted
P3(W+ WIW) which describes the probability that tlie
set W is decoded as W at the receiver. The P E P can be
related t o an upper bound of P, using the union bound.
To proceed, define D as the Euclidean distance between
W and W, let
denote Hermitian transpose, * denote
conjugate, denote transpose, and let h = [hl, h2]. Then

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we can write D z as
N-1

Dz

Ih'(w(k) -

=
k=O

TABLE 1

- w(k))(w(k)- W ( k ) ) H
k 0

:=

P E R F . O F HIGHER STATE CODES RELATIVE TO THE 2-STATE CODE

h'Rh'.

(lo) coding gain of the Zd-state code over the 2-state code
In (9) we have expanded the norm in (8) so that we can as 1olOgl0
~ j is~ the) eigen.
write the squared distance D
' in a quadratic form in (10). value of the matrix for the 2d State encoder and likewise
With these manipulations, we express the PEP as
Inatrix for the 2 State
of the
A;z) is the i t h
encoder. The souare-root is due to the uresence of second
order diversity (we assume that R has full rank) in each
case. This is essentially the ratio of the coding advantage
of the Zd-state code to that of the 2-state code in decibels,
over the 2-state case (see [l]).The next section assesses
performance via simulation with that indicated in Table
1.

-4

V . DISCUSSION
One of the difficulties with implenting decision directed
antenna hopping is that switching between antennas is
required at the symbol rate. Depending on the implementation, the symbol rate may thus be limited by the
speed at which we can hop from antenna to antenna. Additionally, hopping from antenna to antenna rapidly can
increase the peak-to-average requirements on the power
amplifier. In practice we can alleviate the switching problem by using the following trick. Note that the multiplication of w(n) bv a unitarv matrix U does not chanee
"_
the performance since h'URU"h* = I?Rh*, where h
Average performance of the system will be determined
has the same statistics as h. With this in mind, we could
by the eigenvalues of R which are dependent on the dischoose
dance between W and W (91. Loosely, the diversity atlvantage depends on the rank of R while the asymptotic
coding gain depends on the products of the eigenvalues.
This observation has led to the development of spacetime trellis codes which are designed to both maximize so hopping takes place across the basis or beams created
diversity and coding gain [l].
by the antenna weights [l,l]'/\/z and (1,-1Y/d. In this
Decision-directed antenna hopping can be viewed as case we might consider decision-directed basis hopping
a form of space-time coding where we impose a specific where the antenna selection function T ( n ) chooses the
structure on the spatial constellation at the transmitter. basis while s ( n ) chooses the weighting of the basis. In a
Our structure in Fig. 3 was chosen (i) t o combine the similar way we may also view the delay diversity system
process of antenna hopping and coding and (ii) t o provide in Fig. 6 a form of decision-directed basis hopping on the
a simple means of providing second order diversity while basis forming the rows of U.
achieving coding gain over delay diversity. Though we
A comparable strategy for transmit diversity, known
focused on two transmit antennas it is not too difficult t o as delay diversity, is illustrated in Fig. 6. The principle
see that with larger numbers of antennas we can obtain of delay diversity is t o convert spatial selectivity into fremore diversity gain by choosing a hopping and symbol quency selectivity which can be exloited at the receiver
using maximum likelihood sequence estimation. It should
mapping which maximizes the rank of R.
In Table 1. we give the performance characteristics of be clear that when using BPSK, delay diversity also rethe encoders displayed in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5. The ta- sults in a receive constellation with cardinallity IWI = 4.
ble lists the minimum length error event, the diversity The main difference between decision-directed hopping
gain, and the (asymptotic) coding gain. We compute the and delay diversity is that the former allows the inclusion

Equation (11) follows by definition of PEP. After applying the well-known Chernoff approximation in (12), we
evaluate the expected value over the complex multivariate vector h to arrive at (13). For convenience we seek
to expand the determinant in (13). Let Ak be the kth
eigenvalue of the matrix R. Then we can rewrite (13) as

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I
112
Fig. 6. Delay diversity

of some memory d to increase the coding gain without an


increase in transmitter complexity. This advantage may
be offset by the fact that the concept of delay diversity
maps more easily to other constellations. We remark that
for d = 2 and using the transformation in (15) it can
be shown that the 2-state decision-directed hopping code
has performance similar (actually slightly worse) to the
BPSK, two antenna, delay diversity scheme, as will be
verified in the simulations.

Pig. 7. R a m e error rate performance comparison of codes for 2PSK and rate 1 b/s/Hz with two tranSmit antennm and one
receive antenna

VI. SIMULATIONS
To assess the performance of the proposed codes we
used Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the frame error rate. We evaluated the performance over 5,000 franies
with 100 synibols in each frame. The encoder was forced
to the zero state at the end of each frame. Two independent, identically distributed, complex Gaussian random
variables were used to generate channels hl and R z for
each frame. The channel was perfectly known to the receiver. A maximum likelihood receiver, implemented via
the Viterhi algorithm, was used to detect the received
bits. In Fig. 7 we compare the proposed decision-directed
antenna hopping codes, delay-diversity, and no diversity
in terms of frame error rate. This figure verifies t,liat t,he
Z-st,at,eilccision-diroc:t,e[lantenna hopping code and delay
diversity have siniilar perforinance, with delay diversity
having a slight advantage at higher SNR. After increasing
to 4-states, only modest gains, about one-half a decibel
are obtained bv increasing the tnemorv of the system. For
the 16.state code, at FER of 10-1, we obtaiIl about 2dB
in gain over the 2-state code whereas we had predicted
3dB. Note that for an FER of lo-' we are about 3dB
from the outage capacity of about 6dB (obtained from
plots in [I]).

VII. CONCLUSION

In tllis paper we presented an idea for transmit diveresity which combines the operations of antenna l w p i %
and coding" at the transmitter. Such an aonroach avoids
the need for constellation expansion, interleaving, and
possible handwidth expansion typically required in other
systems where antenna hopping is used at the transmitwe presented 2, 4, 8, and 16 State codes for the
case of two transmitting antennas and BPSK modulation.
Performance analsysis using the pairwise error probahility was used to assess performance. Simulation results
I .

show that with a 16 state decision-directed antenna hopping encoder, for a ten-percent frame error rate, we are
3dB from the outage capacity. Future work will focus 011
designing general hopping strategies for higher order constellations and will consider multiple transmit and receive
antennas.

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