Media-based modulation: Converting static Rayleigh fading to AWGN

It is shown in [1] that embedding information in the (intentional) variation of the transmission media (end-to-end channel) can offer significant gains vs. traditional SISO, SIMO and MIMO systems. In particular, it is shown that using a single transmit antenna and K receive antennas; significant savings in energy vs. a K×K MIMO can be achieved [1]. This article proves that, a 1 × K media-based modulation over a static multi-path channel asymptotically achieves the capacity of K parallel AWGN channels, where for each unit of energy over the single transmit antenna, the effective energy for each of the K AWGN channels is the statistical average of channel fading. The rate of convergence is computed. Significant gains can be realized even in a SISO media-based setup. An example for the practical construction of the system and its realistic RF simulation are presented. Issues of equalization and selection gain are discussed.