Noncoherent space-time coding for correlated massive MIMO channel with Riemannian distance

This paper considers a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) uplink system in correlated Rayleigh fading channels. A transmitter with two antennas needs to send data timely to a base station with a large number of antennas. We assume the channel coefficients keep constant during two consecutive time slots and change independently in the following two successive time slots. We construct a Riemannian-distance (RD) based noncoherent detector for such a system. Also, we propose a novel noncoherent parametric space-time coding method. We first attain the closed-form solutions of the optimal sub-constellation structures for fixed modulation orders with the max-min rule. Then, we determine the optimal modulation order for each sub-constellation. The analytical results show that our proposed scheme can attain a larger RD distance than the existing massive uniquely factorable constellation coding (MUFC) scheme. Further, we illustrate that our proposed coding scheme enables a low-complexity RD decoding algorithm. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme performs better than the current phase shift keying modulation scheme and MUFC scheme.