2015 International Conference on Computing Communication Control and Automation
A LITERATURE SURVEY on BSS APPROACHES for MIMO-OFDM
DETECTION
Renuka Bhandari
Department of Electronics & Telecommunication
Army Institute of Technology
Pune, India
rbhandari@aitpune.edu.in
Abstract — In this paper the problem of detection and blind
source separation (BSS) in multiple input and multiple
output (MIMO) communication are discussed. In
conventional detection techniques, transmitter has to
transmit channel state information (CSI) constantly to the
receiver. It affects spectral efficiency & it decreases
effective data rates also. As spectrum is a limited source,
BSS approaches are promising options for MIMO detection.
Spectrum efficiency is one of the main challenges in
wireless communication system design. The main objective
of this literature survey is to provide an overview of main
BSS algorithms used in the detection of MIMO-OFDM and
the working of BSS in this promising research field. For
this, recapitulation is done of last few years research efforts,
with SOS (second order statistics) and HOS (higher order
statistics) BSS methods in MIMO.
Keywords—BSS, CSI, HOS, SOS,MIMO-OFDM
I. INTRODUCTION
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
[1] has some great advantages as: Low complexity of
implementation, Orthogonality of subcarriers in
transmission, and at the receiver side easy equalization.
MIMO- OFDM demonstrates benefits of both MIMO and
OFDM like enhancement in channel capacity [2] and combat
inter symbol interference (ISI) as compare to single input
single output (SISO) –OFDM. Because of all these features
MIMO-OFDM systems have recently attracted great interest.
In MIMO-OFDM, detection plays very critical role at the
receiver. Several detection techniques are available in the
literature, optimal as well as suboptimal. For coherent
detection all conventional detectors require channel state
information (CSI). In wireless communication generally
training symbols are used to find CSI. However,
transmission of training symbols reduces spectral efficiency
in wireless communication systems, because this field of
communication has very scarce bandwidth resource.
Secondly in high mobility MIMO-OFDM system the
transmission of the CSI is not often effective. Furthermore,
978-1-4799-6892-3/15 $31.00 © 2015 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICCUBEA.2015.51
Sangeeta Jadhav
Department of Information Technology
Army Institute of Technology
Pune, India
djsangeeta@rediffmail.com
CSI may cause a wrong detection if it is attenuated during
transmission [3]. Blind multiuser detection [4] is an
innovative and efficient method in which retransmission of
CSI is not used in MIMO OFDM system.
Many blind detection techniques can be found in the
literature. The blind detection methods can be classified
according to order of the process into Higher-Order Statistics
(HOS) based techniques and Second Order Statistics (SOS)
based techniques. Some other classification of BSS
techniques is based on implementation as Adaptive BSS
methods and Iterative BSS methods. In adaptive methods,
separation depends on the statistics properties of output
signal and require large amount of data for separation. In
iterative methods block based separation is done and these
approaches assume that channel is constant within a block
but it can change in successive blocks. Performance of
MIMO OFDM systems can be evaluated with two important
parameters: one is computational complexity and the other
one is Bit Error Rate (BER) performance. In literature many
BSS methods were proposed. Some of them are based on
SOS and remaining on HOS, performance-complexity
tradeoff is always there. The HOS BSS detectors show very
good performance, but require high complexity in return.
Some SOS BSS detectors require less computation, but they
cannot obtain good performance. This gives augment to an
inherent trade-off between these two important parameters
performance and complexity in MIMO- OFDM detection
using BSS methods.
The objective of this paper is to review some main SOS and
HOS BSS methods those are used in literature for detection
of MIMO OFDM system. This paper will give a research
path for the improvement of the performance complexity
trade-off of BSS methods in MIMO-OFDM detection and
that will provide more practical realization of MIMO
systems. The block diagram for BSS detection in MIMO-
OFDM is demonstrated in Fig.1. Modulator transfers input
bit sequence into MPSK/ MQAM modulated signal.
Encoder is optional block. Some encoding techniques like
SFBC and STBC can be used. Serial to parallel block is
used to convert discrete time modulated signal into parallel
stream.
238
 Fig.1 BSS detection in MIMO-OFDM
Parallel data streams are converted into low rate parallel sub
channels. Each sub channel is having different subcarrier
frequency and all subcarriers will be orthogonal to each
other. At the transmitter cyclic prefix is added to avoid ISI
and it is removed at the receiver.
Receiver performs reverse operation, firstly cyclic prefix is
removed then using FFT, demodulation of OFDM symbols
will be done. After this, parallel to serial converter
recombined MPSK/MQAM baseband signal. At final stage,
BSS algorithm and demodulator are used for detection of
data, which is transmitted by transmitter.
II. SECOND ORDER STATISTICS BSS METHODS
In Fig.2 classification of main blind source separation (BSS)
is shown.
A. Subspace Method:
In [5] a subspace method is proposed in which short
averaging periods have been projected. It demonstrates
good accuracy but for optimizing the ambiguity matrix, it
requires additional feedback information of transmission
channel. Computation complexity is less if the number of
subcarrier is less than 64[6].Subspace methods [7] [8]
shows that the performance will be good if channel is in
good condition and it is sensitive to Gaussian noise also.
B. PCA:
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is SOS based BSS
method that used for blind channel estimation and detection
of MIMO systems [9]. To accomplish detection, PCA used
the eigenvalues analysis for selecting the most significance
principal components [9]. It’s simple as far as
implementation is concern but in case of deep fade channel,
PCA based detection may not be effective for some
communication signals with small number of samples and
not sufficient to constitute reliable statistics [10].
III. HIGHER ORDER STATISTICS BSS METHODS
A. Constant Modulus Algorithm
The constant modulus algorithm (CMA) [11] demonstrates
good global convergence and simplicity. Because of these
two properties it is the best known and the simplest adaptive
blind separation algorithm. It’s based on the higher-order
statistics (HOS) of the channel output [12]. CMA has
capability to minimize the channel output amplitude
deviation from a constant, to separate one desired source
239
Fig.2 Classification of BSS detection techniques
signal from the channel output [14]. For constant modulus
signal, it is effective detection technique. However CMA
detection can suffer from a considerable amount of ISI
residual and for non-constant modulus signals it shows non-
minimal convergence [13]. CMA does not ensure all
sources extraction and it generally converges to capture the
same signal. In literature some multistage techniques are
mentioned in which one source signal is extracted by CMA
and to get another source signal, channel output produces
replica of extracted source signal [15]. By repeating this
process the rest of the signal can be extracted. Estimated
errors in one stage propagate in next stages and because of
that performance degradation has been observed. To avoid
this problem one stage method cross-correlation and
constant modulus algorithm (CC-CMA) in [16] has been
proposed. In this approach all source signals are covered at
the same iteration. This method ensures that all the extracted
signals are uncorrelated. This method has less
computational complexity. [17] Shows a new CM
algorithm, in this nonlinear function is employed as the de-
correlation term.
B. JADE:
JADE (Joint Approximate Diagonalization of Eigen-
matrices) [18] is a batch parameter free procedure of blind
detection algorithm. Compare to other BSS algorithms, it is
able to make short data sequence. [19] is based on
approximate diagonalization of fourth-order cumulate
matrices of the observation signals. To avoid permutation
and scaling indeterminacy problems in JADE, LSTE
(Layered Space-time Equalization) approach is used in [20].
In this method JADE is applied to all subcarriers and after
that LSTE is used in iterative manner. It avoids problem of
JADE algorithm but it has complex structure.
.
C. Nature Gradient:
In [21] & [22], two nature gradient algorithms are presented
for real valued and complex valued signals respectively.
These algorithms are capable of detection of MIMO. The
permutation and scaling indeterminacy are two main
ambiguities in BSS methods. In [23] to resolve these
problems, previous subcarrier is used sequentially and the
nature gradient approach is applied to each current
subcarrier. However some error propagation occurs in this
sequential approach and it shows the higher computation and
complexity.
D. Fast ICA:
[24] Proposed a real valued algorithm for Independent
component analysis. E. Bingham and A. Hyvärinen
presented [25][26] fast ICA algorithms for complex valued
signals which are applicable to MIMO- OFDM systems. In
[27] fast ICA is used to SDMA aided MIMO FDM in
presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) for
detecting multiuser signals. Fast ICA [25] algorithm is used
because of it has fast convergence, less computation
complexity, and good BER performance. Fast ICA by
fractional sampling in the frequency domain is proposed in
[28].HOS always faces two major problems: the permutation
and scaling indeterminacy. In this research paper [28], these
are solved by PLL (phase locked loop). At the receiver better
diversity and more no. of received signals are achieved by
the fractional sampling. However, the computation
complexity is high in this method. In literature fast ICA
method is used with other detection methods in iteration like
[29] uses a linear Minimum Mean Squared Error (MMSE).
TABLE I. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SELECTED BSS DETECTION TECHNIQUES IN MIMO-OFDM
Order Detection Method Advantages
SOS Sub Space 1.It achieves a good detection accuracy
2. Less complex for a limited subcarriers. information using additional feedback.
PCA 1 Less complex.
2. Good performance with small number of 2. In some cases PCA does not give satisfactory result with
data except some deep fade channel.
In this only one subcarrier uses fast ICA and other
subcarriers are unmixed with the help of MMSE method.
Reference [30] uses ICA in every subcarrier to obtain better
performance. However, this receiver shows a high
complexity because a reordering module is used for each
subcarrier to avoid order indeterminacies of ICA and
ambiguity in scaling and in an OFDM system numbers of
subcarriers are large.
Further in [31] two detection techniques are shown. In first
method ICA-MMSE is used with non-redundant encoding
technique to improve performance of the system and for
second one more detection concept, Successive Interference
Cancellation (SIC) [32] is used named as ICA-MMSE+SIC
detection method.
In previous sections advantages and disadvantages of
selected BSS techniques are discussed, Table I shows
summary of previous work done in this research field. As
earlier, the different schemes are classified into Second
Order Statistics (‘SOS’) and Higher Order Statistics (HOS)
BSS techniques. Two main performance criteria are bit error
rate (BER) and computational complexity.
Disadvantages
1. For proper detection it requires transmission channel
2. In ill -conditioned MIMO channel it shows poor performance
3. This method is sensitivity to Gaussian noise.
4. After a limited subcarriers it’s computational complexity
increases.
1. Performance is not good for deep fade channel.
some communication signals.

HOS CMA 1. Simplest adaptive BSS method in HOS.
2. CMA provides good solution to inter-
symbol interference (ISI) and inter-user-
interference (IUI).
3. For Constant modulus signals like M-ary
phase shift keying (MPSK), best suited
method.
Nature Gradient 1. Iterative processing structure of this
method is hardware-friendly
2. Resolve the permutation and scaling
indeterminacy.
JADE 1 Data sequences used in JADE algorithm is
shorter as compared with other BSS
algorithms.
Fast ICA 1. Fast convergence.
2. Less computation complexity in some
cases.
3. Good BER performance.
4. Sensitivity for noise is less in ICA methods
as compare to subspace methods because it
uses HOS.
1. At low SNR levels it shows Slow convergence and
sometimes misconvergence.
2. CMA shows degrade performance if modulus of signal is not
constant. For example Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
(QAM). It happens because all points that signal is having
projected by a single modulus.
3. CMA does not ensure all source extraction and it generally
converges to capture the same signal
4. It works properly if and only if number of receivers are more
than no. of transmitters.
1. Permutation and scaling ambiguity for each user is present in
every bin index.
2. Computational complexity.
1. Complex structure.
2. Only JADE technique cannot avoid ambiguity of scaling and
permutation
1. It increases the computation complexity if in detection
method ICA will be used for all subcarriers.

240
 I. CONCLUSION
During the last few years, field of blind source separation
techniques for MIMO-OFDM communication systems
has evolved rapidly. This paper has offered a literature
survey of some known BSS approaches for MIMO-
OFDM communication systems with their advantages
and disadvantages. In this survey different SOS and HOS
BSS approaches those are useful in MIMO-OFDM
detection were stated. Development of new approaches
has great diversity because different applications select
different configurations to stipulate the unknown
parameters. Although an enormous amount of papers on
MIMO-OFDM detection has already been available, still
the area of Blind Source Separation (BSS) approaches in
MIMO-OFDM detection deserves further investigation to
solve some interesting open problems.
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