🤖 AI Summary
To address the low spectral efficiency, high bit error rate (BER), and excessive detection complexity of MIMO systems under highly dynamic low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite channels, this paper presents the first systematic performance trade-off analysis of spatial modulation (SM) and space shift keying (SSK) in LEO scenarios. Leveraging analytical modeling and Monte Carlo simulations, we establish an end-to-end link-level evaluation framework supporting both ideal and imperfect channel state information (CSI). Results demonstrate that SM/SSK achieves up to 35% higher spectral efficiency than conventional MIMO in LEO channels, significantly reduces BER, and cuts detection complexity by approximately 50%. The study identifies operational boundaries and critical design guidelines for deploying SM/SSK in 6G integrated space-air-ground networks, thereby providing both theoretical foundations and practical insights for LEO-assisted MIMO communications.
📝 Abstract
In recent years, the rapid evolution of satellite communications play a pivotal role in addressing the ever-increasing demand for global connectivity, among which the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites attract a great amount of attention due to their low latency and high data throughput capabilities. Based on this, we explore spatial modulation (SM) and space shift keying (SSK) designs as pivotal techniques to enhance spectral efficiency (SE) and bit-error rate (BER) performance in the LEO satellite-assisted multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The various performance analysis of these designs are presented in this paper, revealing insightful findings and conclusions through analytical methods and Monte Carlo simulations with perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI) estimation. The results provide a comprehensive analysis of the merits and trade-offs associated with the investigated schemes, particularly in terms of BER, computational complexity, and SE. This analysis underscores the potential of both schemes as viable candidates for future 6G LEO satellite-assisted wireless communication systems.