Abstract
The prospect of ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (UM-MIMO) technology to combat the distance problem at the Terahertz (THz) band is considered. It is well-known that the very large available bandwidths at THz frequencies come at the cost of severe propagation losses and power limitations, which result in very short communication distances. Recently, graphene-based plasmonic nano-antenna arrays that can accommodate hundreds of antenna elements in a few millimeters have been proposed. While such arrays enable efficient beamforming that can increase the communication range, they fail to provide sufficient spatial degrees of freedom for spatial multiplexing. In this paper, we examine spatial modulation (SM) techniques that can leverage the properties of densely packed configurable arrays of subarrays of nano-antennas, to increase capacity and spectral efficiency, while maintaining acceptable beamforming performance. Depending on the communication distance and the frequency of operation, a specific SM configuration that ensures good channel conditions is recommended. We analyze the performance of the proposed schemes theoretically and numerically in terms of symbol and bit error rates, where significant gains are observed compared to conventional SM. We demonstrate that SM at very high frequencies is a feasible paradigm, and we motivate several extensions that can make THz-band SM a future research trend.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 8765243 |
Pages (from-to) | 2040-2052 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications |
Volume | 37 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Manuscript received December 2, 2018; revised April 27, 2019; accepted June 22, 2019. Date of publication July 17, 2019; date of current version August 19, 2019. This work was supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Office of Sponsored Research. (Corresponding author: Hadi Sarieddeen.) The authors are with the Department of Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia (e-mail: hadi.sarieddeen@ kaust.edu.sa; [email protected]; [email protected]).
Publisher Copyright:
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Keywords
- arrays-of-subarrays
- graphene
- spatial modulation
- THz communications
- ultra-massive MIMO
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Computer Networks and Communications
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering