Cluster Index Modulation for mmWave Communication Systems

In this study, a novel cluster index modulation (CIM) scheme, which is based on indexing the available clusters in the environment, is proposed for future mmWave communication systems. Exploiting the fact that the available clusters in the system are well separated in terms of their angular distribution, we selected the best path for each of them and then performed IM in an algorithmic manner to convey information bits. It is shown that by means of large antenna arrays and analog RF beamforming with the indexed clusters, the destructive effect of inter-beam/cluster interference can be remarkably mitigated. Also, we designed a hybrid beamforming architecture at the transmitter to further reduce the effect of residual inter-beam/cluster interference, where the analog RF beamformer is followed by a digital baseband precoder using the zero-forcing technique. Computer simulations reveal that the proposed scheme can provide better error performance than traditional mmWave communication, and the proposed hybrid architecture outperforms beam index modulation (BIM) for a point-to-point scenario. Semi-analytical derivations and closed-form unconditional pairwise error probability (UPEP) expressions are derived for both analog and hybrid architectures, which confirm the validity and superiority of our proposed scheme.