A Novel Error Performance Analysis Methodology for OFDM-IM

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing with index modulation (OFDM-IM) has become a high-profile candidate for the modulation scheme in next generation networks, and many works have been published to analyze it in recent years. Error performance is one of the most important and interesting aspects of OFDM-IM, which has been analyzed in most works. However, most of them employ two key approximations to derive the closed-form expressions of block error rate (BLER) and/or average bit error rate (BER). The first one is to utilize the union bound assisted by the pairwise error probability analysis, and the second one is to employ an exponential approximation of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${Q}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-function. In this letter, we apply Craig’s formula to analyze the error performance for OFDM-IM in place of the exponential approximation. Because Craig’s formula is the exact expression of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${Q}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-function, the accuracy of analytical results regarding error performance for OFDM-IM can be improved. We examine the proposed error performance analysis methodology based on Craig’s formula by investigating both average BLER and BER.