IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 20, NO.
7, JULY 2021
FDA Based QSM for mmWave Wireless
Communications: Frequency Diverse Transmitter
and Reduced Complexity Receiver
Abdul Basit , Wen-Qin Wang , Senior Member, IEEE, Shaddrack Yaw Nusenu , and Samad Wali
Abstract— Quadrature spatial modulation (QSM) based
millimeter wave (mmWave) communication system design using
frequency diverse array (FDA) is proposed in this article.
Since spatial modulation techniques (SMT) employ maximum
likelihood (ML) based detector at receiver, the computational
complexity increases vastly. Moreover, numerous existing SMT
methods utilize phased array (PA), where only angle dependent
communication is possible. In this article, we propose to use a
standard FDA that exploits a small linearly increasing frequency
offset across the array for range-angle dependent QSM wireless
communications. That is, the in-phase and quadrature compo-
nents of transmission vector utilize slightly different frequencies
to deliver the information. Furthermore, we propose a suboptimal
multi-stage (MS) detector in the receiver, which applies a matched
filtering (i.e., bandpass filters matched to the corresponding
frequency offsets) approach to decode the index bits at first step,
whereas, merely, two most probable estimated indices are utilized
further to decode associated data bits using a standard ML
method. Adhering an improved signal to noise ratio (SNR) due
to an FDA based range-angle dependent transmission, simulation
and numerical results show the improved performance of the
proposed design over existing SM and QSM based schemes, while
MS approach reduces the receiver’s computational complexity.
Index Terms— Quadrature spatial modulation, frequency
diverse array, millimeter wave (mmWave) communications, wire-
less communications.
I. I NTRODUCTION
S INCE the conventional wireless technologies suffer lim-
ited bandwidth constraints, demands of high data rate
Manuscript received February 3, 2020; revised August 12, 2020 and
December 10, 2020; accepted February 15, 2021. Date of publication
February 26, 2021; date of current version July 12, 2021. This work was
supported by the Sichuan Science and Technology Program under Grant
2018RZ0141. The associate editor coordinating the review of this article
and approving it for publication was P. Casari. (Corresponding author:
Abdul Basit.)
Abdul Basit is with the School of Information and Communication
Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
Chengdu 611731, China, and also with the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, International Islamic University, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan (e-mail:
abdulbasit@iiu.edu.pk).
Wen-Qin Wang is with the School of Information and Communication
Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
Chengdu 611731, China (e-mail: wqwang@uestc.edu.cn).
Shaddrack Yaw Nusenu is with the School of Information and Communica-
tion Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
Chengdu 611731, China, and also with the Electronic/Electrical Engineer-
ing Department, Koforidua Technical University (KTU), Koforidua, Ghana
(e-mail: nusenu2012gh@yahoo.com; nusenu@ktu.edu.gh).
Samad Wali is with the School of Information and Communication Engi-
neering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu
611731, China, and also with the Department of Mathematics, Namal Institute,
Mianwali 42250, Pakistan (e-mail: samad.walikhan@outlook.com).
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TWC.2021.3060512.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TWC.2021.3060512
1536-1276 © 2021 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
4571
transmissions for forthcoming fifth generation (5G) wireless
communications need to be addressed with some novel tech-
nologies. With a tremendous bandwidth availability rang-
ing from 30–300 GHz and enhanced data rates, millimeter
wave (mmWave) communication tends to be a vital tech-
nology for 5G wireless communications designs [1]. Note
that, mmWave communications can support data rates up to
multi-gigabits per second (Gb/s) in device to device (D2D),
indoor/outdoor and cellular communications [2]–[5]. Impor-
tantly, wave propagation at high bands such as 70/80 GHz pro-
vides very high data rates and bears a negligible atmospheric
attenuation. Moreover, it remains unaffected by several
channel deterioration originators like dust, snow and light
rain [6], [7]. In short, a high-throughput wireless transmis-
sion with a boosted overall achievable data rate is essential
to meet the requirements of the future generation wireless
technologies.
One of the vital technical advances include the multi-
ple input single output (MISO)/multiple input multiple out-
put (MIMO) based design, which have demonstrated the
high-throughput transmission performances in various recent
standards such as WIMAX, LTE etc., [8], [9]. Therefore,
hybridizing high data rate mmWave designs with MIMO
designs is reasonable to meet the objectives of 5G and
beyond [10], [11].
Recently, spatial modulation (SM) [12], [13] and its variants
such as generalized spatial modulation (GSM) [14], differ-
ential spatial modulation (DSM) [15] and quadrature spatial
modulation (QSM) [16] present MIMO designs hybridized
with digital modulation techniques to utilize both signal and
space domain modulations for transmitting information. These
techniques utilize multiple transmit antennas in a unique
method for achieving spatial multiplexing gains. That is,
the indices of transmit antennas carry additional information
i.e., index modulation (IM) bits based on spatial constellation
points [17]. Although SM transmission avoids inter-channel
interference (ICI) due to a single transmit antenna activation
at one time instant, yet the data rate is as low as the
base-two logarithm of deployed transmit antennas. Therefore,
QSM [16] was presented to overcome this major criticism
by expanding the spatial symbols to quadrature and in-phase
components for transmitting the real part of constellation
with one antenna and imaginary part with the second one.
Despite of transmission from two antennas, the transmission
avoids ICI similar to SM as the transmitted data are orthogo-
nal. Moreover, an additional base-two logarithm of deployed
4572
transmit antennas bits are transmitted, which is an added
benefit with all the inherent properties of SM. The QSM
performance over Rayleigh channel has been presented in [16],
whereas a comprehensive framework for generalized fading
scenarios has been proposed in [18]. Eventually, the overall
improved data rate advantage makes QSM a potential candi-
date for 5G mmWave communications.
The conventional receivers of SMT employ maximum
likelihood (ML) detector [13], which has to search jointly
overall deployed transmit antennas and constellation symbols
to detect active transmit antenna for demodulation IM bits and
transmitted data symbol, respectively. Unfortunately, the com-
putational complexity of ML-based detector is very high.
Therefore, instead of jointly detecting, suboptimal detectors
are opted to detect the activated transmit antennas first and
demodulating the data symbol over this antenna later, which
can significantly reduce the complexity for increasing number
of deployed antennas and higher order constellations [19].
However, these suboptimal detectors don’t promise a low error
rate for critical applications, which opens a new research area
in pursuit of near-optimal/suboptimal low complexity detec-
tion methods [20]. Moreover, sparse transmission of SM based
structures pave a way for matched-filtering and multi-stage
(MS) detection sub-optimal methods such as [20]–[22].
Initially, a matched filtering approach was proposed in [20]
with a reduced complexity and near optimal detection. After-
wards an improved matched filtering detector with further
reduced complexity was proposed in [21], which makes the
multiple most probable antenna indices decision at the first
stage to particularly reduce the receiver complexity, while
improving the overall design performance in next stages. How-
ever, it considers only a single receiver antenna. Furthermore,
another distance-based ordered detection (DBD) algorithm
was proposed in [22], which introduces a parameter to make
a trade-off between computational complexity and detection
performance.
Although QSM warrants several promising potentials for
future wireless communication technologies, yet most of the
existing methods use phased array (PA) antennas at the
transmitter [5], [23]–[28] that limit the QSM functionality
in angle dimensions, only, without taking into account any
range dimension information. The main limitations include
high cost of electronic phase shifters, energy focusing on fixed
angle directions for all the range values and no feasibility of
range-dependent interference suppression. Note that, the PA
based design’s overall performance deteriorates drastically,
if it has to discriminate between two or more receivers
that are highly correlated (e.g., legitimate and illegitimate
communication receivers that reside on same direction but
different ranges). Therefore, a range-angle dependent QSM
transmission may significantly increase the signal to noise
ratio (SNR) and signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR)
due to an improved range-angle dependent energy focusing
and range-dependent interference cancellation, respectively.
In the recent years, a flexible array design with a range-angle
dependent beamforming feature and more degrees of free-
dom (DoF) known as frequency diverse array (FDA) [29]
has been thoroughly investigated for radar and communication
Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021
applications. Different from PA, a standard FDA utilizes a
linearly increasing small frequency offset across its array
elements to generate a time–range–angle dependent beam pat-
tern [29], [30] for radar target localization and tracking appli-
cations [31], [32]. Since the FDA is relatively new technique,
few works about its application in communication field can
be found in the literature [33]–[41]. In [33], the authors have
proposed a range-dependent retro-directive FDA focusing for
wireless information and power transfer (WIPT). Moreover,
physical layer security for communication has been achieved
using time modulated and the directional modulated FDAs
in [34] and [35]–[37], respectively. In [38], the authors have
proposed a retro-directive FDA time modulation for detecting
precise legitimate location of target for improved detection
performance. Similarly, FDAs have been utilized in [39]for
obtaining enhanced capacity and detection performance for
ambient backscatter communication. Moreover, FDA based
multi-beam index modulation has been exploited by cooper-
ative legitimate users in [40]. Similarly, FDA based physical
layer security has also been incorporated over Nakagami-m
fading channels for an overall improved performance [41].
Moreover, mmWave communications using an FDAs have
also been investigated and can be found in the literature
[42]–[48]. In [42], a secure mmWave UAV-Enabled SWIPT
network communication has been investigated, while secure
mmWave wireless communication using fixed region FDA
beamforming has been presented in [43]. Moreover, combina-
tion of spatial modulation with the FDA has been investigated
in [44], [45] for overall improved performance for fifth gener-
ation and beyond, wireless communication designs. Similarly,
energy efficient design of mmWave communication networks
have been presented in [46], [47], where retro-directive FDA
has been used to achieve the objective. Finally, FDA based
dynamic rotated angular beamforming for secure mmWave
wireless communication has been used in [48]. However,
numerous potential benefits of FDA range-angle dependent
functionality and beamforming are yet to be explored for an
overall improved performance of these designs.
Therefore, visualizing QSM as a powerful candidate for
mmWave communication applications and considering its
(standard QSM) limitations in angle dimension for energy
focusing and mitigating range-dependent interferences plus
noise have opened new possibilities to explore efficient meth-
ods for obtaining improved performance. Moreover, high com-
putational complexity of ML based receiver for QSM based
designs warrants an improved, efficient and fast method with
reduced computational complexity to achieve better data rate
and improved bit error rate (BER). These open problems have
motivated us to hybridize QSM with an FDA for improved
transmission, ICI avoidance and detection performances,
while achieving a less computationally complex receiver
as compared to the existing techniques with an improved
performance.
In this article, we utilize a frequency diverse array
(FDA) [29] in QSM for mmWave communications. Since two
antennas are activated in a unique way at a single time instant
to transmit real and imaginary parts of the symbol, we propose
an FDA with linearly increasing frequency offset deployed at
BASIT et al.: FDA BASED QSM FOR mmWAVE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS 4573

the transmitter front end that will facilitate to transmit each given as fn (t) = f0 + Δfn (t). Note that, a time–
part of the symbol with a slightly different frequency. These range-angle dependent beampattern is generated due to a
frequency offsets not only originate a range-angle dependency linearly increasing small frequency offset across the array
but also a time variance is induced in FDA based transmission, i.e., Δfn (t) = (n − 1) Δf (t). The FDA transmitted signal,
which provides a potential multi-path utilization for mmWave that is received at a far-field point target, is given as [49]
wireless communications. More importantly, transmission on
different frequencies at one time opens the option of matched s (t, r, θ)
filtering at the receiver end to demodulate the IM and symbols N t −1  rn 
bits in the proposed design. The main contributions can be = sn t − (1a)
n=0
c
summarized as follows:     

 t −1
rn 
N
1) A time-range-angle dependent QSM transmission r − ndsin (θ)
= wn exp j2π fn t − t−
based on an FDA for mmWave wireless communication c c
n=0
MISO/MIMO channel is proposed for an improved signal to (1b)
noise ratio (SNR) performance. The linearly increasing fre-
quency offset scheme is utilized to transmit real and imaginary where sn (t) denotes the signal transmitted by the
parts of the communication symbol with slightly different nth element, rn = r−nd sin θ represents the distance of target
frequencies at one time for better ICI avoidance as well. from nth element and wn denotes the corresponding weight,
This approach also generates more flexibility for multi-path whereas c denotes the speed of light and θ represents the
utilization for mmWave wireless communications. angle.
2) We propose a suboptimal multi stage (MS) receiver The array factor of an FDA i.e., AFFDA that considers the
design with reduced computational complexity, which uses propagational delay is expressed as [49]
a bank of band pass filters matched to the corresponding
transmit frequency offsets for estimating the most probable AFF DA (t, r, θ)
  
 t −1
rn 
N
antenna indices to decoded index bits at first step, whereas, f0 ndsin (θ)
merely, two most probable estimated indices are utilized = exp j2π + Δfn t −
c c
to decode associated data bits using a standard maximum n=0
 

likelihood (ML) method in the second step.
Adhering an improved SNR due to an FDA range-angle
dependent transmission in a mmWave channel, simulation
and numerical results show the improved performance of the
proposed design over existing SM and QSM based schemes,
while MS approach effectively reduces the receiver’s compu-
tational complexity. Moreover, time variance problem of FDA
is avoided due to the fact that the in-phase and quadrature
parts in the proposed design are transmitted only in one
time slot.
The rest of the article is organized as follows. Section II
provides the details of standard FDA and QSM technologies.
Section III presents the proposed hybrid QSM–FDA design
and section IV is reserved for performance analysis. Finally,
simulation results are presented in section V and article is
concluded in section VI.
r − ndsin (θ)
× t− (2)
c
Note that, this time–range–angle dependent array factor
facilitates to generate a beam pattern with multiple maxima
at different range and angle values, which is different from
PA where the maximum is constant for one angle and all
the ranges as shown in Fig. 1. Additionally, improved SNR
and signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) can be obtained
using an FDA transmission [31], [32], specifically when inter-
ferers have a same direction as of target but different ranges.
In contrast to PA, the FDA will illuminate, merely, the target
range-angle position at a specific time instant, avoiding all
positions of the potential interferers.
B. Conventional QSM
In a standard
  QSM transmission, a block of η-bits
II. F REQUENCY D IVERSE A RRAY (η = log2 M Nt2 ), where M denotes size of constellation
AND C ONVENTIONAL QSM and Nt represents the number of transmit antennas, is divided
into three blocks. The first block contains of log2 (M ) bits
A brief introduction of the standard FDA and the conven-
for symbol modulation, while the other two blocks contain
tional QSM based transmission has been presented for readers’
of log2 (Nt ) bits for activating two antennas for transmitting
ease in this section.
in-phase and quadrature parts of symbol [16].
For example, consider quadrature amplitude modulation
A. Frequency Diverse Array (4-QAM) MIMO scheme with 4 transmit antennas i.e.,
We consider a uniform linear array (ULA) with Nt antenna M = 4, Nt = 4 is used for QSM transmission. Using the
elements having uniform inter-element spacing d. Different above formula, total η = 6 data bits can be  transmitted at a
2
from a phased array (PA), the frequency transmitted from particular time instant as η = log ⎡2 M N t = 6. We repre-⎤
nth element of an FDA is slightly different from its adjacent
element due to an increasing frequency offset across the array. sent these incoming bits as k = ⎣ 
11 01
 1 1 ⎦,

Denoting Δf as frequency offset and f0 as a fundamental log2 (M) log2 (Nt ) log2 (Nt )
frequency, the frequency output fn of the nth element is where the first log2 (M ) bits i.e.,[1 1] modulate the 4-QAM

Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
4574
Fig. 1. Comparison of generated beam patterns towards target (0o and 200 m) by (a) an FDA (b) a PA.
constellation symbol as x = +1 − j that is decomposed into
its real and imaginary parts given as x = +1 and x = −j,
respectively. The next log2 (Nt ) bits i.e.,[0 1] modulate the
transmit antenna  = 2 to transmit real part of the symbol
x = +1. Finally, the last log2 (Nt ) bits i.e., [1 1] modulate
the transmit antenna  = 4 to transmit imaginary part of
the symbol x = −j. After coherently adding the vectors
achieved from the mapping process, the resultant vector to be
transmitted is given as
T structures employ an array of antennas (i.e., FDA), whereas
x = [0 + 1 0 − j]
Note that,  if the sequence of incoming bits are all 1’s
i.e., k = 1 1 1 1 1 1 , which yields  =  = 4 with
resultant vector to be transmitted as x = [0 0 0 + 1 − j]T ,
the ICI is still entirely avoided at the receiver input due to
quadrature and in-phase components of the carrier signal [5].
Eventually, the vector x is transmitted over a Nr × Nt
MIMO channel H, where Nr denotes the number of antennas
at the receiver. The signal experiences an additive Gaussian
noise (AWGN) having zero mean and συ2 = N0 variance for
both real and imaginary parts transmission (i.e., double side
power spectral density equal to N0 /2. The received signal at
output of the channel is given by
 from the existing techniques, both real and imaginary parts
y = Pt (h x + jh x )+υ;  ,  = 1, 2, . . . , Nt (4)
 T
where h = h1, . . . hNr , represent the  th column
of channel matrix H, whereas the channel entries can be
considered independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) com-
plex Gaussian random variables with zero mean and variance
σh2 for line-of-sight (LOS) communications, while Rayleigh
fading channel √ entries for Non-LOS (NLOS) communications.
Moreover, Pt and υ are transmitted energy and additive
noise vector with double sided variance N0 /2, respectively.
With a perfect channel knowledge, the optimum ML decoder
at the receiver of a QSM based MIMO system is given by [16]
 
ˆ , ˆ , x̂ , x̂
  2
 
= arg min y − Pt (h x + jh x ) (5)
 , ,x ,x
where . denotes the norm operator. Estimated antennas
indices ˆ , ˆ and data symbols x̂ , x̂ are used to retrieve
the transmitted sequence.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021
However, the complexity of ML-based receiver is very
high as it jointly searches all deployed transmit antennas and
symbols for detecting active antenna indices and decoding data
symbols.
III. P ROPOSED D ESIGN
In this section, we present the proposed FDA based QSM
designs for mmWave communications. We consider both the
MISO and the MIMO structures, where transmitters of both
(3)
receiver contains a single omnidirectional antenna (see Fig. 2)
and multiple antennas (see Fig. 3) for MISO and MIMO,
respectively. Note that, each transmit array element is trans-
mitting the signal with a slightly different frequency due to a
linearly increasing frequency offset Δf utilized in FDA.
A. Proposed Hybrid QSM-FDA Modulator
We consider a single bit sequence as the input of the
proposed system, which is divided into three groups to gen-
erate QSM based communication setup [16]. We obtain a
transmit information vector x similar to (3) indicating the
active number of antenna elements from the array. Different
are transmitted with slightly different frequencies due to an
FDA based transmitter. The selected frequency offset vector
Δfs for two activated antennas indices out of Nt elements is
based on vector x and is given as
Δfs = [|x (1)| |x (2)| . . . |x (Nt )|][Δf 2Δf . . . Nt Δf ]
(6)
where |x (n)| represent the absolute value of n entry of th
vector x and  denotes Hadamard product. For example,
the activated antennas indices  = 2 and  = 4 in (3)
correspond to transmission of real and imaginary parts with
2Δf and 4Δf frequency offsets, respectively.
Note that, slightly different frequency offsets transmitted
from in-phase and quadrature components do not destroy the
orthogonality between them. Since FDA transmits identical
baseband waveform s(t) from each array element, the ij th
element of the correlation matrix denoted by βij is calculated
p
T
as βij = wi s (t)wj∗ s∗ (t) ej2π(Δfi −Δfj )t dt, where w shows
0
BASIT et al.: FDA BASED QSM FOR mmWAVE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS 4575

Fig. 2. The proposed QSM–FDA design for mmWave communications.

the corresponding array element’s weight and Tp denotes the receiver (θd , rd ), a generalized channel impulse response
pulse duration. Therefore, the frequency offsets fulfilling the hn,m (t) for nth transmit and mth receive antennas can be
k
condition that Δfi − Δfj = Tijp ; kij ∈ Z will guarantee calculated similar to [50], [51] as
the signal orthogonality [31], [38].
We consider both cases, where this vector x is transmitted 
L

towards a communication receiver located at (θd , rd ) over hn,m (t) = hln,m al exp {jϕl } δ
an Nt × 1 mmWave channel h and an Nr × Nt mmWave l=1
 rdl     
channel H for MISO and MIMO structures employing an × t − n δ θ − θdln δ φ − φdlm (8)
FDA, respectively. The received signals at the output of the c
MISO and MIMO channels are given by (7a) and (7b), shown where L denotes the total number of multi-path components,
at the bottom of the page, respectively. hln,m represents the lth subpath channel attenuation between
In (7a), xn represents the nth entry of resultant trans- rd l
nth transmit and mth receive antennas, whereas al , φl and cn
mit vector x that is modulated using a QSM scheme over
denote amplitude, phase and propagation delay of lth subpath.
a mmWave MISO channel h including h and h in
Moreover, θdln and φdlm denote the angle of departure (AOD)
accordance with the two active transmit antennas. With an
and angle of arrival (AOA) for nth transmit and mth receive
additive noise during propagation,
√ the output of the channel
antenna, respectively.
can be represented as x̃ = Pt (h x + jh x ) + υ,  ,
For a FDA transmitter with a uniform inter-element dis-
 = 1, 2, . . . , Nt . Moreover, in (7b), xn,m denotes the
tance d and a single receive antenna (i.e., MISO structure),
nth entry of vector x modulated over mth sub-channel of
the transfer function hn (f ) of this impulse response (8) can
an Nr × Nt MIMO channel H including h and h in
be written as
accordance with the two active transmit antennas. The output
of the channel
√ for a communication symbol can be represented
as x̃ =√ Pt (h x + jh x ) + υ,  ,  = 1, 2, . . . , Nt , hn (f )
where Pt and υ are transmitted energy and additive noise = hn,1 (f )
with double sided variance N0 /2, respectively. Note that, for a L
   
MIMO channel, υ is a Nr ×1 vector. Moreover, Δfsn denotes = hln,1 al̃ exp jϕl̃ exp −j2πfn rdln
the nth value of vector Δfs presented in (6). l=1


f0     
× exp −j2π nd sin θdln exp −j2π sin φdl1
c
B. 3D mmWave Channel Model for the Proposed Designs (9)
We consider a 3D mmWave channel for MISO and MIMO
designs, where antennas are operating at mmWave frequencies. Similarly, the transfer function hn,m (f ) for a receiver
Considering a known range-angle position of communication containing an FDA (i.e., MIMO structure) with uniform

 

Nt  rd  j2π
f0 (n−1)d(sin(θ)−sin(θd ))
+Δfsn (t− rcn ) t−
((r−rd )−(n−1)dsin(θ))
y(t,r,θ;rd,θd ) = t− e ∗ hn (t) + υn
c c
wn xn (7a)
c
n=1
 
Nt 
Nr  rd  j2π
f0 (n−1)d(sin(θ)−sin(θd ))
+Δfsn (t− rcn ) t−
((r−rd )−(n−1)dsin(θ))
y(t,r,θ;rd,θd ) = t− e ∗ hn,m (t) + υn,m
c c
wn xn,m
n=1 m=1
c
(7b)

Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
4576 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021

inter-element distance d is given as The output ỹn is given as

ỹn
hn,m (f ) r 
d
≈ x̃

L
    c  
= hln,m al̃ exp jϕl̃ exp −j2πfn rdln r  ((r−r )−(n − 1) dsin (θ))

n d
× exp j2π Δfsn
l=1 c c


f0   (13)
× exp −j2π nd sin θdln
c we can see that (13) contains frequency offset information
  

f0 and corresponding symbol information as well. We further use

× exp −j2π m sin φdl1 (10) an LNA to amplify the output. Afterwards, an analog to digital
c
converter (ADC) is used for sampling and storage. The overall
Note that, the MIMO channel attenuations matrix for lth output is stacked in a vector given as
path i.e., Hl is an Nr × Nt matrix, which contains all hln,m ỹ = [ỹ1 ỹ2 , . . . , ỹNt ] (14)
individual channel attenuations.
Analogous to [52], the values of al̃ , ϕl̃ , θdln , φdlm can be Since a QSM based FDA transmitter is used that acti-
generated using 3-D statistical channel model for mmWave vates only two antennas at a single time, the vector in (14)
communication for a desired mmWave frequency, range values will have only two non-near-to-zero values matching to the
and antenna gains. respective BPFs. Hence, we use these two non-near-to-zero
values for estimating the active transmit antennas positions
and decode the information at a specific time. In the sec-
ond step, information residing on these active antennas is
C. The Proposed Receiver
decoded using standard ML and constellation de-mapping
Instead of using an ML detector, directly, at the receiver, algorithms [21], [22].
we propose a new method to detect indices of active transmit We have summarized the detection in the following
antenna first and demodulate the information on these antennas Algorithm 1.
in the second step.
1) Single Receiver Antenna: As shown in Fig. 2, we con- Algorithm 1 Proposed Algorithm for Decoding Indices and
sider an FDA at the transmitter, whereas a single antenna is Information Bits
deployed at receiver. Since we assume a perfect knowledge of 1: Input ỹ = [ỹ1 ỹ2 , . . . , ỹNt ]
the mmWave channel at the receiver, the QSM–FDA signal 2: Detect the positions
 of two non-zero  components of vector
received by that single antenna at the desired range-angle ỹ to decide ˆ , ˆ = ˆp , ˆq using a two-step process
location is given (7a). At first, an analog mixer is used given as
to down-convert the received signal to a zero-intermediate ⎧  
frequency and is given as ⎪
⎪ ˆp = argmax |ỹ1 | |ỹ2 | · · · |ỹN |

⎨ t
ˆp   (15)
y(t,r,θ;rd ,θd ) ⎪
⎪ ˆ
 = argmax |ỹ | |ỹ | · · · |ỹ |
⎩ q
ˆ ˆ
1 2 N t

Nt r  q =p
d
≈ x̃ 3: Decode the information bits associated to these indices
c
n=1
  i.e., { }log2 (Nt )−bits and { }log2 (Nt )−bits , respectively.
f0 (n − 1) d (sin (θ) − sin (θd )) 4: Assuming the correct indices estimation, the associated
×exp j2π
c data bits on these indices are estimated as i.e.,
  r   ((r−r )−(n − 1) dsin (θ))

n d {x̂ , x̂ } = {x̂p , x̂q }

+ Δfsn t− t− $
c c
x̂p = hˆp ỹˆp
(11) (16)
x̂q = hˆq ỹˆq
where x̃ is the received information symbol which contains 5: Use standard ML criterion and M-ary de-mapper to decode
originally transmitted signal x plus the additive noise υ. Q/I log2 (M ) data bits x̂ , x̂ associated to these estimated
Initially, this signal is amplified in a low noise amplifier (LNA) indices ˆ , ˆ .
as shown in Fig. 2. Afterwards, the signal is filtered by Nt 6: Arrange the decoded bits in a vector
bandpass filters (BPFs) with bandwidth of Δf and center x̂ using the formation given as x̂ =
frequencies as nΔf, n = 1, 2, . . . , Nt . If we denote the  
x̂ x̂ { }log2 (Nt )−bits { }log2 (Nt )−bits
temporary response of nth BPF as h̃n (t), then the output after 7: Go to step 2 for new detection
mixing with nth frequency offset is given as
  The proposed approach is effective and convenient with
ỹn = y (t) ∗ h̃n (t) × exp {−j2πnΔf t} ; added advantages of range-angle dependent QSM transmis-
n = 1, 2, . . . , Nt (12) sion. That is, we have utilized the frequency offset for

Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
BASIT et al.: FDA BASED QSM FOR mmWAVE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS 4577

the error rate of these two processes. For analysis, if we

Fig. 3. The proposed QSM–FDA design with multiple receive antennas for
mmWave communications.
range-angle dependent QSM at the transmitter side, whereas
active antenna indices and information is decoded by exploit-
ing BPFs at the receiver side.
Important Remark : Consider the special case, where all
the input bits are 1’s. The output vector ỹ will have only one
non-zero
 component
 matching to the specified frequency offset
ˆ ˆ
i.e.,  =  . The proposed design considers this problem
by de-mapping  the constellation to estimate x̂ , x̂ at first,
 Since two antennas are active at a time instant in a QSM
whereas x̂ = x̂ x̂ { }log2 (Nt )−bits { }log2 (Nt )−bits .
2) Multiple Receiver Antennas: Note that, we can apply the
proposed multi-stage detection method to a multiple receive
elements scenario shown in Fig. 3, for obtaining an overall
improved capacity. We assume that an FDA with uniform
inter-element distances d is deployed at the receiver. Since
the vector x is transmitted over an Nr × Nt mmWave
MIMO channel with a transfer function H, a noise vector
with dimension Nr × 1 is added to the transmitted symbol.
Assuming a perfect knowledge of this mmWave channel at
the receiver, the received FDA-QSM signal at an FDA based
receiver is given in (17), shown at the bottom of the page,
(see Appendix for derivation and details), where an extra term
containing the receiver element’s information is added.
After that, utilizing the output of (17), ỹn is extracted
consider these two processes as independent, it will give us the
lower bound on achievable overall probability of error by the
proposed QSM-FDA design. We denote bit error probability
of erroneous active antenna indices estimation as pα given the
symbol is accurately estimated, whereas pβ denote the bit error
probability of symbol estimation given the antenna indices
are accurately estimated. Since both processes are considered
independent, the overall probability of correct estimation pc
of all data bits is pc = (1 − pα ) (1 − pβ ). Hence, the overall
probability of error pe is bounded by
pe ≥ 1 − pc (18a)
= pβ + pα − pα pβ (18b)
However, the independent estimation of both processes is an
ideal condition yet we obtain the lower bound on our prosed
design’s performance.
B. Bit Error Rate Analysis
based transmission, the MISO model for the proposed design
can be viewed as a 2 × 1 2-input 1-output configuration,
whereas a MIMO system can be viewed as 2 × Nr con-
figuration. Moreover, average error probabilities (AEP) of
both antenna indices estimation and symbol data estimation
are computed in two stages to get a lower bound on error
probability.
At first, we assume accurate transmit symbol detection,
therefore the bit error probability of transmit antenna indices
estimation is derived using the approach in [53], [54],
whereas the average bit error probability pα is union
bounded as
pα

Nt 
Nt 
M 
Nt 
Nt

using (12) and (13) by matching the specific output with each ≤
of transmitted frequency offset. Similarly, vector ỹ is obtained. n=1 k=1 l=1 n̂=1 k̂=1
   
Finally, the proposed Algorithm 1 is utilized to estimate the N (n, n̂) p (x,nl → x,n̂l) K k, k̂ p x,kl → x,k̂l
IM and data bits, respectively. ×
Nt2 M
(19)
IV. P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS
In this section, we present the performance analysis of our where
 x =  (x + jx ) and p (x,nl → x,n̂l ) and
proposed design. p x,kl → x,k̂l are the pairwise error probabilities (PEP)
for selecting transmit vectors x,n̂l and x,k̂l when x,nl and
A. Probability of Error Analysis x,kl were transmitted, respectively. Moreover n, k and n̂, k̂
The proposed receiver estimates two quantities, 1) the active denote the true antenna and  estimated indices, respectively,
antenna indices and 2) the transmitted symbols on these whereas N (n, n̂) and K k, k̂ represent number of error bits
indices. Importantly, the design performance depends upon between true and estimated indices.

    

r −1
rm 
N
f0 md (sin (θ) − sin (θd )) (r−rd ) − mdsin (θ)
y(t,r,θ;rd,θd ) = ejϕ0 x̃g (t, rd , θd ) exp j2π +Δfm t − t−
m=0
c c c
(17)

Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
4578 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021

Importantly, the PEP for QSM design with single receive searches data and spatial symbols assuming the perfect
antenna is given as given by [16] knowledge
 2 of channel.
 The complexity of QSM is given as
% & ' ∼ O 8N , whereas
1 t M N r  the complexity of [21] is computed
p (xnl → xn̂l ) = 1−
ξ/2
(20) as ∼ O 8Nt2 + 8N 2 M for Nr = 1, where N ≤ Nt .
2 1 + ξ/2 However, in the proposed design, only two most prob-
able estimate of transmit antenna indices are obtained,
where ξ is exponential random variable. Since we assume
in the first stage, using the BPFs matching to the
the correct estimation of transmit symbols{x̂ , x̂ }, the ξ is
transmitted FDA frequency offset for each data symbol.
defined as
⎧ In the second stage, the two most probable estimates
⎪ Pt 2  2 2

⎪
⎪ σh |x̂ | + |x̂ | if h = hˆ , h = hˆ are forwarded for ML-based detection for data symbols.
⎪
⎨ 2N
⎪ 0
Pt 2   Hence the
 complexity for  the proposed
  detector
 is given
2
ξ= σ |x̂ | if h = hˆ , h = hˆ (21) as ∼O 8Nt2 Nr + 4Nt Nr + 8 22 M Nr , which can be
⎪
⎪ 2N0 h  
⎪
⎪ Pt 2 reduced when Nr = 1. Note that, the first term in complexity
⎪
⎩ σ |x̂ |
2
if h = hˆ , h = hˆ
2N0 h expression is for bandpass filtering and active indices detec-
tion, whereas the second term is for ML detection, where only
For a receiver equipped with Nr receive antennas, 2 active indices are selected.
the instantaneous PEP is given by Since the first stage output of the BPFs significantly
⎛*
+ Nr ⎞
+ reduces the input set for the ML detection, it reduces
p (xnl → xn̂l ) = Q ⎝, ξm ⎠ (22) the second stage’s ML receiver complexity, significantly. Note
m=1 that, the overall complexity is less than the standard jointly
estimating ML receiver for a greater number of transmit
whereas the average PEP is given as antenna with M-QAM transmission as shown in the simu-
r −1 
N lation. Providentially, a trade-off between performance and
Nr − 1 + m m
p (xnl → xn̂l ) = χNr (1 − χ) (23) computational complexity has to be made based on the
m
m=0 application.
where χ denotes the PEP with single receive antenna.
Importantly, assuming an accurate estimation of antenna
indices h , the proposed QSM-FDA receiver applies ML D. Capacity Analysis
criterion for symbol estimation as follows Since a QSM based technique transmit data bits through
√   spatial and signal constellation diagram, it adheres a specific
2
{h , xû } = argmax SN R |h xu | − 2Re {ỹ h xu } (24) nature of mmWave MIMO/MISO communication channel.
u
Therefore, capacity analysis considering both signal constel-
where xû denotes the ML based estimated symbol, while xu
lation and data over spatial symbols is presented for our
is uth symbol from M-QAM constellation i.e.,u ∈ [1 : M ].
proposed FDA-QSM design. At first, a MISO channel is
The average symbol error rate (SER) for the utilized M-QAM
considered, which can be extended to a MIMO channel easily.
constellation [54] can be used to get average symbol bit error
Moreover, the simulation results for both the SIMO and MIMO
probability pβ given as
designs used for the proposed method have been added in the
SERM−QAM simulations and results section.
pβ = (25)
log2 (M ) As QSM activates two transmit antennas to modulate bits in
Since a conventional ML detector jointly estimates the channels {h , h } along with the symbol bits s , the general
antenna indices and transmit symbol, which is computationally Ergodic capacity of the proposed MISO QSM-FDA design is
complex. Therefore, a multistage estimator is proposed using given as
the properties of an FDA. The complexity of the proposed 

design is significantly reduced as the two most probable
antenna indices are selected, at the first stage, using outputs
of the BPFs matched to a distinct frequency offset (see Fig 2).
Hence a reduced set of input is then sent to the optimal ML
QSM detector to estimate the symbols on these antenna indices
channels in the second stage. Finally, both antenna indices and
data symbols {h , xû } are estimated.
C. Receiver Computational Complexity
It has been proved [16] that receiver complexity of QSM
is almost the same as SM, while the spectral efficiency
has increased by utilizing 2 antennas at single time instant.
Two extra complex multiplications for each receive antenna
is needed to estimate data symbols, whereas ML jointly
C = Ehd max I (x; ỹ|hd ) (26)
px
where E {.} is expectation operator and px denotes the
probability density function (PDF) of transmitted vector x,
while mutual information is between x and received vector
ỹ is maximized over px assuming a perfect knowledge of
channel h. Since proposed QSM-FDA design use different
channels to convey information, no averaging over channel
vector h is required. Therefore, maximization of mutual infor-
mation between transmitted spatial and constellation symbol
with the received vector ỹ is the capacity of proposed design is
given as
C = max I (h , s ; ỹ) (27)
ph , ps ,

Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
BASIT et al.: FDA BASED QSM FOR mmWAVE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS 4579

Analogous to [5], mutual information i.e, I (h , s ; ỹ) is Moreover, σx2 is the signal power, wr is the received array
derived as weights vector i.e.,wR = [w1 , w2 , . . . , wNr ] and u (t, θd , rd )
denotes the receive steering vector, whereas Ri+υ denotes the
I = H (ỹ) − H (ỹ|h , s ) (28a)
$ % $ /'/ interference plus noise covariance matrix.
ỹ−h s 2
− Since a mmWave based communication signal
= −log2 (e) − Eỹ log2 Eh ,s e 2
συ
is normally considered in a noise-dominant rather
(28b) than an interference-dominant environment, therefore,
Δ
SN RF DAmmW ave = SIN RF DAmmW ave and the SINR in
where H (.) denotes the entropy function. As the entropy (34) can be approximated as
doesn’t depend on h and s [5], the maximization of H (ỹ) is
enough. Since a zero mean Gaussian distribution CN (0, σ 2 ) is 0 H 02
best candidate to maximize entropy, where σ denotes variance, σx2 0wR u (t, θd , rd )0
SN RF DAmmW ave (35a)
the receive vector must have CN (0, σỹ2 ), where σỹ2 denotes the συ2 wRHw
R
variance of ỹ. Hence entropy is given by σx2 |wR u (t, θd , rd )|
2
(35b)
H (ỹ) = −Eỹ {log2 (pỹ (ỹ))} (29a) συ2 wR Hw
R
   2
= log2 πe 1 + συ2 (29b) |wR u (t, θd , rd )|
SN R0 (35c)
Note that, the capacity for QSM with one receive antenna wR Hw
R

is derived as [5] where συ2 denotes the noise power and SN R0 is a com-
C = log2 (1 + SN R) (30a) mon SNR. Additionally, it has been shown in [5] that a
 3D mmWave-QSM channel can be approximated with a
1
= log2 1 + 2 (30b) log-normal channel. Provided a proper shaping of constel-
συ
lation symbols for 3D-mmWave-QSM channel, a theoretical
where SNR is signal to noise ratio, whereas the capacity for capacity can be reached with one input data stream. Note that,
channel dependent MISO SMT designs is given as [55]–[57] an FDA based transmission considers a range-angle position
 

1 2 of communication receiver to deliver bits, which results in an

Chd = Ehd log2 1 + 2 |h | (31)
συ
Since Younis et al [5] proved that QSM channel capacity
neither depends upon the channel response h nor the constella-
tion symbols as seen in (26). Importantly, it only depends upon
the SNR and number of receive antennas, which is directly
linked with the proposed design. Since we consider different
interferers in the scene including few with same direction as
of the desired communication receiver, the multi-path signal
over a mmWave channel reaching at receiver may have low
SNR or SINR that can deteriorate the capacity performance
dependent on received SNR. Using an FDA frequency offset
Δf at the receiver includes a range-angle information of the
desired communication receiver that adds more flexibility to
improve the SNR and thus the design’s capacity (see Fig. 1(b)).
Therefore, the capacity of the proposed design dependent upon
received SNR/SINR and receiver elements Nr = 1 is given as
CF DA = log2 (1 + SN RSmmW ave )
where SN RSmmW ave denotes the SNR using one antenna
element at the receiver. Note that, for Nr > 1, the capacity of
the proposed design is given as
CF DA = Nr log2 (1 + SN RF DAmmW ave )
where SN RF DAmmW ave denotes the SNR for the proposed
design with Nr > 1. However, we express the SINR of the
proposed design as
0 H 02
σx2 0wR u (t, θd , rd )0
SIN RF DAmmW ave = (34)
wR
HR
i+υ wR
where x̃ of (7) and (17) is divided as x̃ = x + υ that
indicates the transmitted signal x with an additive noise υ.
improved SNR and hence an improved capacity is ensured.
V. S IMULATIONS AND R ESULTS
To evaluate the performance of the proposed MISO/MIMO
FDA-mmWave-QSM design, we have considered an FDA at
the transmitter end operating a frequency of 73 GHz with a
linearly increasing frequency offset of 200 kHz. The trans-
mitter and receiver have Nt and Nr antenna elements with a
uniform half wavelength inter-element distances, respectively.
Since a log-normal channel is used for modeling 3D mmWave
empirical channel due to the proved equivalence in [5],
a mmWave/log-normal channel is considered unless indicated.
The additive noise is modeled as a complex Gaussian zero
mean white random sequence. Additionally, we assume a
full channel knowledge at the receiver located at range-angle
position (200 m, 0◦) with respect to the transmitter array.
(32) For an average bit error rate performance, we com-
pare proposed design’s performance in Fig. 4 with
[20]–[22], [39], [40], [44] for Nr = 1 and Nr = 4, where
Yang’s detector only uses one receive antenna. Note that,
the proposed method outperforms the existing methods and
(33) achieve a near-optimal BER for Nr = 1 as well as for Nr = 4
as shown in Figs. 4 (a) and (b). More specifically, the improved
performance of the proposed design is due to a reduced input
set for ML detection at second stage with an high SNR of an
FDA range-angle dependent transmission.
To further highlight the advantages of the proposed MS
FDA-QSM receiver design, we assume a scenario, where
more number of interferers have the same direction but
different ranges. Therefore, we have compared the average
BER performance with SM and QSM designs based on PA

Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
4580
Fig. 4. Comparison of average BER for Nt = 4 and 4 − QAM modulation (a) MISO structure Nr = 1 (b) MIMO structure Nr = 4.
Fig. 5. BER performance comparison between SM, QSM and proposed
FDA-QSM for spectral efficiency of 6 b/s/Hz.
with spectral efficiency of 6 b/s/Hz. Moreover, a minimum of
106 symbols have been transmitted to compute the average
BER for every SNR value. Moreover, we consider that target
is located at θ0 = 0◦ , r = 200 m, while two interferes
have same angle directions but different ranges given as
250 m and300 m, respectively. Fig. 5 shows that the proposed
FDA-QSM design outperforms SM and QSM, effectively. The
improvement in performance is due to a range-angle dependent
FDA transmission, which promises an improved SNR and
signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) at the receiver for
this kind multiple-interferers scenario that is not dealt in PA
based designs.
Importantly, the vital advantage of the proposed design is a
reduced complexity receiver, while maintaining an appropriate
BER. Therefore, a comparison of receiver complexity for the
ML detector, Yang’s MS detector [21], [39], [40], [44] and
proposed FDA-QSM MS detector has been given in Fig. 6 (a).
Although, the complexity of Yang’s detector is much lower for
Nr = 1 than that of an optimal ML detector for choosing N
most probable transmit antenna indices where N ≤ Nt , yet
the proposed design’s complexity is lesser than both since it,
merely, chooses 2 most probable antenna indices from any
number of Nt antennas. Therefore, a complexity comparison
Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021
is given for two different number of transmitter antennas
i.e.,Nt = 4, 16, where the proposed design always selects
2 indices that warrant a less complexity of the proposed design
as shown in the figure. The complexity goes lesser as soon
as the number of transmit antennas increases. Additionally,
the complexity is also compared with the [20], [22], [39],
[40], [44] in Fig. 6 (b) for increased number of transmit and
receiver antennas to further highlight the benefit of proposed
design.
In [5], it has been derived that capacity of QSM only
depends upon the SNR and number of receiver antennas.
Therefore, using that fact, Fig.7 provides the comparison
among the theoretical capacity given in (30) and two different
channel capacities using QSM modulation i.e., Rayleigh and
mmWave channels given in the literature as (27) with Nt = 4
and Nr = 1. Analogous to [5], it is evident from the figure that
QSM can achieve 1 bit more for Rayleigh channel, whereas
2 bits more for mmWave channel than that is thought in
literature. This enhancement in the capacity can be obtained
with proper shaping of constellation symbols, which is another
promising research area. Moreover, multi-path signals along
with more number of deployed transmit antennas decrease the
correlation for mmWave channels and eventually facilitate to
approach a nearly Rayleigh channel performance.
For further insight, the mutual information curves for
mmWave and log-Normal channel fading channels considering
two different spectral efficiencies i.e, 6 and 10 bits/s/Hz for
Nt = 4 and Nr = 1 are presented in Fig 8. It has been
demonstrated that the response of these two channels closely
match for a wide and realistic range of SNR values that also
validates their close approximation/equivalence for empirical
channel modeling.
Since the capacity of QSM depends upon the receiver SNR
and number of receiving antennas Nr [5], improved SNR is
promised by utilizing an FDA based transmission. Eventu-
ally, the proposed FDA-QSM design’s performance has been
compared with theoretical capacity and mutual information of
PA-based SM and QSM designs in Fig. 9 over a 3D mmWave
channel with two different spectral efficiencies i.e, 6 and
10 bits/s/Hz for Nt = 4 and Nr = 1. Note, that the QSM out-
performs SM in each case but the the performance is promising
BASIT et al.: FDA BASED QSM FOR mmWAVE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS 4581

Fig. 6. Complexity Comparison with (a) Nr = 1 (b) Nt = 16, Nr = 2.

Fig. 7. Comparison among the QSM capacity and the capacities derived in Fig. 9. Comparison of theoretical capacity and simulated mutual information
literature for Rayleigh and mmWave channels with Nt = 4 and Nr = 1. of the proposed FDA-QSM, QSM and SM over the mmWave channel model
with Nt = 4 and Nr = 1.

Fig. 8. Comparison of theoretical capacity and simulated mutual information

of the mmWave-QSM for Nt = 4 and Nr = 1. Fig. 10. Comparison of theoretical capacity and simulated mutual information
of the proposed FDA-QSM and QSM over the mmWave channel model with
Nt = 4 and Nr = 4.

for larger spectral efficiencies. More importantly, the proposed

FDA-QSM outperforms both SM and QSM due to the inherent at the receiver due to an accurate matching of frequency with
property of an FDA for obtaining an increased SNR at the a specified frequency offset for each transmit antenna index,
receiver as discussed in Section II. Moreover, the proposed specifically when multiple communication receivers reside at
BPFs with ideal responses also contribute to increase the SNR a same angle but different ranges.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
4582 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021

Consider a receiver array with Nr elements uniform FDA

having the steering vector i.e., AFR (t, r, θ) as

AFR (t,r,θ;rd ,θd )


r −1
N f0 md(sin(θ)−sin(θd ))
j2π
= e
c

m=0
 (r−rd )−mdsin(θ)

j2π Δfm (t− rm
c ) t−
×e
c
(37)

The received signal can be presented as


Nt  rd 
y(t,r,θ;rd ,θd ) = wn x̃n t −
c
n=1
f0 (n−1)d(sin(θ)−sin(θd ))

j2π
×e
c
Fig. 11. The capacity of the proposed FDA-QSM compared to the  ((r−rd )−(n−1)dsin(θ))

simulated capacity of standard QSM over the 3D–mmWave channel model for j2π Δfsn (t− rcn ) t−
×e
c
η = 6,12 with Nt = 4 and Nr = 4.
r −1
N f0 md(sin(θ)−sin(θd ))

j2π
× e
c
Furthermore, the performance comparison with the
increased number of receiving antennas i.e., Nr = 4 (see m=0
 
(r−rd )−mdsin(θ)
Fig. 2) has been presented in Fig. 10, where we considered a j2π Δfm (t− rm
c ) t−
×e
c
simple FDA with 4 elements at the receiver. Note, the proposed (38)
FDA-QSM design outperforms the standard QSM design as
The above equation can be equivalently written as
shown in the figure.
Additionally, we have made the performance comparison y(t,r,θ;rd,θd ) = ejϕ0 x̃g (t, rd , θd )
between the proposed FDA-QSM technique and existing QSM r −1
N f0 md(sin(θ)−sin(θd ))

j2π
based on the spectrum efficiency. It can be seen in Fig. 11 that × e
c

proposed FDA-QSM technique outperforms the standard QSM

technique for both η = 6 and η = 12. Note that, by keeping
the spectral efficiency constant, a high SNR guarantees an
improved performance of the proposed design as compared to
the standard QSM as shown in Fig. 11.
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this article, an FDA-QSM design for mmWave com-
munication has been proposed. Specifically, the in-phase and
quadrature components of QSM transmit vector utilize slightly
different frequencies to deliver the information, while obtain-
ing an additional range-angle dependent transmission benefit.
Importantly, the time variance problem of FDA is avoided due
to the fact that the in-phase and quadrature parts in proposed
design are transmitted only in one time slot. On the receiver
side, the MS sub-optimal detector with reduced computational
complexity is proposed. That is, a bank of bandpass filters
matched to the corresponding frequency offsets is utilized for
obtaining an output vector, which facilitates to estimate the two
most probable active antenna indices in the first step. Conse-
quently, these two most probable estimated indices are utilized
to decode the associated data bits using a standard maximum
likelihood (ML) method in the second step. Adhering an
improved SNR due to FDA range-angle dependent transmis-
sion, the improved performance of the proposed design over
existing SM and QSM based schemes is evident.
A PPENDIX
Since the received symbol signal contains AWGN υ, it is
given as,
x̃n = xn + υn
m=0
 (r−rd )−mdsin(θ)

j2π Δfm (t− rm
c )
t−
×e
c
(39)
where x̃ denotes communication symbol plus noise, whereas
ϕ0 denotes the common phase and g (t, rd , θd ) represents the
received transmit power at time t.
R EFERENCES
[1] T. S. Rappaport, G. R. MacCartney, M. K. Samimi, and S. Sun, “Wide-
band millimeter-wave propagation measurements and channel models for
future wireless communication system design,” IEEE Trans. Commun.,
vol. 63, no. 9, pp. 3029–3056, Sep. 2015.
[2] J. Wells, “Faster than fiber: The future of multi-G/s wireless,” IEEE
Microw. Mag., vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 104–112, May 2009.
[3] B. Ai et al., “On indoor millimeter wave massive MIMO channels:
Measurement and simulation,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol. 35,
no. 7, pp. 1678–1690, Jul. 2017.
[4] A. Thornburg, T. Bai, and R. W. Heath, “Performance analysis of
outdoor mmWave ad hoc networks,” IEEE Trans. Signal Process.,
vol. 64, no. 15, pp. 4065–4079, Aug. 2016.
[5] A. Younis, N. Abuzgaia, R. Mesleh, and H. Haas, “Quadrature spatial
modulation for 5G outdoor Millimeter–Wave communications: Capacity
analysis,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 2882–2890,
May 2017.
[6] J. Wells, “Multigigabit wireless technology at 70 GHz, 80 GHz and
90 GHz,” in Proc. RF Design, May 2006, pp. 50–58.
[7] G. R. MacCartney and T. S. Rappaport, “73 GHz millimeter wave
propagation measurements for outdoor urban mobile and backhaul
communications in new york city,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Commun.
(ICC), Jun. 2014, pp. 4862–4867.
[8] J. Mietzner, R. Schober, L. Lampe, W. Gerstacker, and P. Hoeher,
“Multiple-antenna techniques for wireless communications—A compre-
hensive literature survey,” IEEE Commun. Surveys Tuts., vol. 11, no. 2,
pp. 87–105, 2nd Quart., 2009.
[9] Q. Li et al., “MIMO techniques in WiMAX and LTE: A feature
(36) overview,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 48, no. 5, pp. 86–92, May 2010.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
BASIT et al.: FDA BASED QSM FOR mmWAVE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
[10] P. Liu, Y. Li, W. Cheng, W. Zhang, and X. Gao, “Energy-
efficient power allocation for millimeter wave beamspace MIMO-
NOMA systems,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 114582–114592, 2019, doi:
10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2935495.
[11] A. Agrawal, V. K. Mishra, A. Gupta, and B. Bansal, “Performance
analysis of beamforming aided uncorrelated mm-Wave MIMO system
for IEEE 802.15.3c standard,” Phys. Commun., vol. 41, pp. 101–114,
Aug. 2020.
[12] M. Di Renzo, H. Haas, A. Ghrayeb, S. Sugiura, and L. Hanzo, “Spa-
tial modulation for generalized MIMO: Challenges, opportunities, and
implementation,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 102, no. 1, pp. 56–103, Jan. 2014.
[13] E. Basar, “Index modulation techniques for 5G wireless networks,” IEEE
Commun. Mag., vol. 54, no. 7, pp. 168–175, Jul. 2016.
[14] A. Younis, N. Serafimovski, R. Mesleh, and H. Haas, “Generalised
spatial modulation,” in Proc. Conf. Rec. 44th Asilomar Conf. Signals,
Syst. Comput., Pacific Grove, CA, USA, Nov. 2010, pp. 1498–1502.
[15] Y. Bian, X. Cheng, M. Wen, L. Yang, H. V. Poor, and B. Jiao,
“Differential spatial modulation,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 64,
no. 7, pp. 3262–3268, Jul. 2015.
[16] R. Mesleh, S. S. Ikki, and H. M. Aggoune, “Quadrature spatial mod-
ulation,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 64, no. 6, pp. 2738–2742,
Jun. 2015.
[17] R. Mesleh, H. Haas, C. W. Ahn, and S. Yun, “Spatial modulation—A
new low complexity spectral efficiency enhancing technique,” in Proc.
1st Int. Conf. Commun. Netw. China, Beijing, China, Oct. 2006, pp. 1–5.
[18] O. S. Badarneh and R. Mesleh, “A comprehensive framework for
quadrature spatial modulation in generalized fading scenarios,” IEEE
Trans. Commun., vol. 64, no. 7, pp. 2961–2970, Jul. 2016.
[19] N. R. Naidoo, H. J. Xu, and T. Al-Mumit Quazi, “Spatial modulation:
Optimal detector asymptotic performance and multiple-stage detection,”
IET Commun., vol. 5, no. 10, pp. 1368–1376, Jul. 2011.
[20] S. Sugiura, C. Xu, S. X. Ng, and L. Hanzo, “Reduced-complexity
coherent versus non-coherent QAM-aided space-time shift keying,”
IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 59, no. 11, pp. 3090–3101, Nov. 2011.
[21] P. Yang, Y. Xiao, L. Li, Q. Tang, and S. Li, “An improved matched-
filter based detection algorithm for space-time shift keying systems,”
IEEE Signal Process. Lett., vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 271–274, May 2012.
[22] Q. Tang, Y. Xiao, P. Yang, Q. Yu, and S. Li, “A new low-complexity
near-ML detection algorithm for spatial modulation,” IEEE Wireless
Commun. Lett., vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 90–93, Feb. 2013.
[23] R. Mesleh and A. Younis, “LOS millimeter-wave communication with
quadrature spatial modulation,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Signal Process.
Inf. Technol. (ISSPIT), Limassol, Cyprus, Dec. 2016, pp. 109–113.
[24] Y. Wang, T. Zhang, W. Yang, J. Guo, Y. Liu, and X. Shang, “Secure
transmission for differential quadrature spatial modulation with artificial
noise,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 7641–7650, 2019.
[25] F. Chen, K. Yang, P. Xing, H. Zhang, and Y. Jiang, “Multiuser pre-coding
aided quadrature spatial modulation for large-scale MIMO channels,”
China Commun., vol. 15, no. 11, pp. 62–69, Nov. 2018.
[26] R. Neelakandan, “Sub-optimal low-complexity detector for gener-
alised quadrature spatial modulation,” Electron. Lett., vol. 54, no. 15,
pp. 941–943, Jul. 2018.
[27] L. Gou, J. Ge, and Y. Cao, “Low-complexity sphere decoding for
quadrature spatial modulation,” in Proc. IEEE 87th Veh. Technol. Conf.
(VTC Spring), Porto, Portugal, Jun. 2018, pp. 1–5.
[28] L. Xiao, P. Xiao, Y. Xiao, I. Hemadeh, A. Mohamed, and L. Hanzo,
“Bayesian compressive sensing assisted space–time block coded quadra-
ture spatial modulation,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 67, no. 10,
pp. 10044–10048, Oct. 2018.
[29] P. Antonik, M. C. Wicks, H. D. Griffiths, and C. J. Baker, “Fre-
quency diverse array radars,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Radar, Apr. 2006,
pp. 215–217.
[30] P. Antonik, “An investigation of a frequency diverse array,”
Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. College London, London, U.K., 2009.
[31] A. Basit, W. Khan, S. Khan, and I. M. Qureshi, “Development of
frequency diverse array radar technology: A review,” IET Radar, Sonar
Navigat., vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 165–175, Feb. 2018.
[32] W.-Q. Wang, “Frequency diverse array antenna: New opportunities,”
IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 145–152, Apr. 2015.
[33] W.-Q. Wang, “Retrodirective frequency diverse array focusing for wire-
less information and power transfer,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun.,
vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 61–73, Jan. 2019.
[34] S. Y. Nusenu, W.-Q. Wang, and J. Xiong, “Time–modulated fre-
quency diverse array for physical–layer security,” IET Microw., Antennas
Propag., vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 336–345, Apr. 2017.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
4583
[35] J. Xiong, S. Y. Nusenu, and W.-Q. Wang, “Directional modulation
using frequency diverse array for secure communications,” Wireless Pers.
Commun., vol. 95, no. 3, pp. 1–11, Mar. 2017.
[36] S. Y. Nusenu, W.-Q. Wang, and S. Ji, “Secure directional modulation
using frequency diverse array antenna,” in Proc. IEEE Radar Conf.
(RadarConf), Seattle, WA, USA, May 2017, pp. 378–382.
[37] W.-Q. Wang, “DM using frequency diverse array antenna for secure
transmission,” IET Microw., Antennas Propag., vol. 11, no. 3,
pp. 336–345, Apr. 2017.
[38] S. Y. Nusenu, S. Huaizong, Y. Pan, and A. Basit, “Directional modula-
tion with precise legitimate location using time-modulation retrodirective
frequency diversity array for secure IoT communications,” IEEE Syst.
J., pp. 1–11, 2020, doi: 10.1109/JSYST.2020.3010787.
[39] Y.-Q. Hu, H. Chen, S.-L. Ji, and W.-Q. Wang, “Ambient backscatter
communication with frequency diverse array for enhanced channel
capacity and detection performance,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 20, no. 18,
pp. 10876–10885, Sep. 2020, doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2020.2993843.
[40] B. Qiu, L. Wang, J. Xie, Z. Zhang, Y. Wang, and M. Tao, “Multi-beam
index modulation with cooperative legitimate users schemes based on
frequency diverse array,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 69, no. 10,
pp. 11028–11041, Oct. 2020, doi: 10.1109/TVT.2020.3007003.
[41] S. Ji and W.-Q. Wang, “Physical-layer security for frequency diverse
array communication system over Nakagami-m fading channels,”
IEEE Syst. J., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 2370–2381, Jun. 2020, doi:
10.1109/JSYST.2019.2923103.
[42] X. Sun, W. Yang, Y. Cai, and M. Wang, “Secure mmWave UAV-
enabled SWIPT networks based on random frequency diverse arrays,”
IEEE Internet Things J., vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 528–540, Jan. 2021, doi:
10.1109/JIOT.2020.3005984.
[43] Y. Hong, X. Jing, H. Gao, and Y. He, “Fixed region beamforming using
frequency diverse subarray for secure mmWave wireless communica-
tions,” IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Security, vol. 15, pp. 2706–2721,
2020, doi: 10.1109/TIFS.2020.2969576.
[44] S. Y. Nusenu and W.-Q. Wang, “Range-dependent spatial modulation
using frequency diverse array for OFDM wireless communications,”
IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 67, no. 11, pp. 10886–10895, Nov. 2018,
doi: 10.1109/TVT.2018.2870045.
[45] S. Y. Nusenu, S. Huaizong, Y. Pan, and A. Basit, “Space-frequency
increment index modulation approach for fifth generation and beyond
wireless communication systems,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 69,
no. 6, pp. 6286–6298, Jun. 2020, doi: 10.1109/TVT.2020.2984912.
[46] S. Y. Nusenu and E. Asare, “Butler matrix frequency diverse retrodi-
rective array beamforming: An energy-efficient technique for mmWave
networks,” Wireless Commun. Mobile Comput., vol. 2020, Feb. 2020,
Art. no. 9408519.
[47] S. Y. Nusenu, “Development of frequency modulated array antennas for
millimeter-wave communications,” Wireless Commun. Mobile Comput.,
vol. 2019, Apr. 2019, Art. no. 6940708.
[48] Y. Hong, X. Jing, Y. He, and J. Mu, “Dynamic rotated angular
beamforming using frequency diverse phased-array for secure mmWave
wireless communications,” Electronics, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 10, Dec. 2019.
[49] K. Chen, S. Yang, Y. Chen, and S.-W. Qu, “Accurate models of
time-invariant beampatterns for frequency diverse arrays,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol. 67, no. 5, pp. 3022–3029, May 2019.
[50] M. Steinbauer, A. F. Molisch, and E. Bonek, “The double-directional
radio channel,” IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 51–63,
Aug. 2001.
[51] A. Forenza, D. J. Love, and R. W. Heath, Jr., “Simplified spa-
tial correlation models for clustered MIMO channels with different
array configurations,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 56, no. 4,
pp. 1924–1934, Jul. 2007.
[52] M. K. Samimi and T. S. Rappaport, “3-D millimeter-wave statistical
channel model for 5G wireless system design,” IEEE Trans. Microw.
Theory Techn., vol. 64, no. 7, pp. 2207–2225, Jul. 2016.
[53] J. Jeganathan, A. Ghrayeb, L. Szczecinski, and A. Ceron, “Space
shift keying modulation for MIMO channels,” IEEE Trans. Wireless
Commun., vol. 8, no. 7, pp. 3692–3703, Jul. 2009.
[54] J. G. Proakis, Digital communications, 4th ed. New York, NY, USA:
McGraw-Hill, 2001.
[55] H. Yonghong, W. Pichao, W. Xiang, Z. Xiaoming, and H. Chunping,
“Ergodic capacity analysis of spatially modulated systems,” China
Commun., vol. 10, no. 7, pp. 118–125, Jul. 2013.
[56] Y. Yang and B. Jiao, “Information-guided channel-hopping for high
data rate wireless communication,” IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 12, no. 4,
pp. 225–227, Apr. 2008.
[57] Y. Yang and B. Jiao, “On the capacity of information-guided channel-
hopping in multi-antenna system,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Comput. Com-
mun. Workshops (INFOCOM), Apr. 2008, pp. 1–5.
4584 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021
Abdul Basit received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees
from International Islamic University, Islamabad,
Pakistan, in 2009 and 2016, respectively. He is
currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with
the School of Information and Communication
Engineering, University of Electronic Science and
Technology of China. He is also an Assistant
Professor with International Islamic University,
Islamabad. His research interests include radar tech-
nology, cognitive radar signal processing, frequency
diverse array signal processing, space modulation
techniques, RADCOM techniques, and millimeter-wave communications.
Wen-Qin Wang (Senior Member, IEEE) received
the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Shan-
dong University, Shandong, China, in 2002, the
M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in information and com-
munication engineering from the University of Elec-
tronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC),
Chengdu, China, in 2005 and 2010, respectively.
From March 2005 to March 2007, he was with
the National Key Laboratory of Microwave Imaging
Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,
China. Since September 2007, he has been with the
School of Communication and Information Engineering, UESTC, where he is
currently a Professor. From June 2011 to May 2012, he was a Visiting Scholar
with the Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ, USA. From December 2012 to
December 2013, he was a Hong Kong Scholar with the City University of
Hong Kong, Hong Kong. From January 2014 to January 2016, he was a Marie
Curie Fellow with the Imperial College London, U.K. He has authored two
books Multi-Antenna Synthetic Aperture Radar (Springer) and Near-Space
Remote Sensing (CRC Press). His research interests include array signal
processing and circuit systems for radar, communications and microwave
remote sensing.
He is the editorial board members of four international journals. He was a
recipient of the Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship, the National
Young Top-Notch Talent of the Ten-Thousand Talent Program Award, and the
Hong Kong Scholar Fellowship.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Downloaded on December 07,2021 at 14:04:19 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Shaddrack Yaw Nusenu received the Ph.D. degree
in information and communication engineering from
the University of Electronic Science and Technology
of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China. He is currently
with Koforidua Technical University, Koforidua,
Ghana, as a Lecturer with the Electrical/Electronic
Department. He is also a Post-Doctoral Fellow
with the School of Information and Communication
Engineering, UESTC. His research interests include
radar technology, cognitive radar signal processing,
frequency diverse array signal processing, wireless
physical layer security, space modulation techniques, spectrum sharing
techniques, and millimeter-wave communications.
Samad Wali received the B.Sc. degree in mathemat-
ics from Forman Christian College Lahore, Pakistan,
the M.Sc. degree in applied mathematics from The
Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan, and the
Ph.D. degree in computational mathematics from
Nankai University, Tianjin, China, in June 2018.
He is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
in image processing and medical image analysis
with the School of Information and Communication
Engineering, University of Electronic Science and
Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu. He is also
an Assistant Professor with the Namal Institute, Mainwali, Pakistan. His
current research interests include image processing, variational methods, and
numerical solution to the partial differential equations.