Received: 13 October 2021 Revised: 31 December 2021 Accepted: 31 January 2022

DOI: 10.1002/ett.4475

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Multiuser steered signed quadrature spatial modulation for

millimeter-wave massive multiple-input multiple-output
with hybrid beamforming

Taissir Y. Elganimi1 Ammar M. Abu-Hudrouss2 Khaled M. Rabie3,4

1
Department of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, University of Tripoli, Tripoli,
Libya
2
Electrical Engineering and Smart
Systems Department, Islamic University
of Gaza, Gaza Strip, Palestine
3
Department of Engineering, Manchester
Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
4
Department of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering Science, University of
Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South
Africa
Correspondence to:
Ammar M. Abu-Hudrouss, Electrical
Engineering and Smart Systems
Department, Islamic University of Gaza,
PO box 108, Gaza Strip, Palestine.
Email:ahdrouss@iugaza.edu.ps
Abstract
In this article, signed quadrature spatial modulation (SQSM) scheme is intrin-
sically amalgamated with both fully digital geometric mean decomposition
(GMD)-based precoding technique and analog beamforming (ABF) for trans-
mission over millimeter-wave (mmWave) channel. Explicitly, the proposed
scheme combines SQSM and GMD-based hybrid beamforming (HBF) in
downlink multiuser scenario, where the Frobenius norm-based user selection
algorithm is considered. This proposed scheme is denoted as multiuser steered
SQSM (MUS-SQSM). The ABF is used to mitigate the severity of the propaga-
tion loss in mmWave band by using power amplifiers and phase shifters. The
performance of the proposed scheme in terms of both the bit error rate and
the average mutual information is assessed in comparison to the conventional
SQSM scheme performance. Simulation results show that significant improve-
ments are realized by both the user selection algorithm and the application of
ABF technique as the number of antenna array elements increases. It is also
demonstrated that MUS-SQSM scheme is robust against the channel estimation
errors. Furthermore, the proposed MUS-SQSM scheme with HBF benefits from
the multiplexing gain of SQSM, the diversity gain of serving multiple users, and
from the beamforming gain. All these gains increase the energy efficiency of the
proposed model; thus, the proposed scheme can be considered in 5G wireless
systems deployment.

1 I N T RO DU CT ION

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has been deemed as a perspective tech-
nique for significantly improving the peak data rates for 5G mobile networks.1 Typically, mmWave communications
have frequencies ranging from 30 to 300 GHz, and the associated wavelength ranges from 1 to 10 mm. Hence, the
resultant high capacity in mmWave communications is due to the relatively available wide bandwidth.1-3 However,
the limitation of the large propagation loss due to the nature of the short corresponding wavelength of mmWave has
an infinitesimal adverse impact especially in urban areas.3 This limitation can be avoided by invoking analog beam-
forming (ABF) technique at both the transmitter and the receiver sides of mmWave aided-MIMO systems with the
aid of a large number of antenna array elements to achieve a beneficial beamforming gain and combat the path-loss
issue.2,4-6

Trans Emerging Tel Tech. 2022;e4475. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ett © 2022 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1 of 18
https://doi.org/10.1002/ett.4475
2 of 18 ELGANIMI et al.

The hybrid analog-digital beamforming (HBF) is proposed in References 7 and 8 and its design approach relies on
cleverly combining ABF and fully digital precoding techniques. HBF provides an improved coverage as compared to
conventional MIMO systems, a higher spectral efficiency (SE), a reduced radio frequency (RF) cost, and a lower power
consumption.9-12 Furthermore, adding digital precoding methods are used in multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) systems to
eliminate the inter-user interference (IUI).13
The most common digital precoding schemes used in MU-MIMO systems are block diagonalization (BD) and
zero-forcing (ZF) precoding methods.14 Some precoding schemes, in general, are used to break down the MIMO
channel into a number of single-input single-output (SISO) channels15 using either the singular value decompo-
sition (SVD)16 or the geometric mean decomposition (GMD).17 The resultant SISO channels from SVD have dif-
ferent gains and need an adaptive bit-allocation. On the other hand, the GMD-based precoding scheme results
in SISO channels with equal gains which alleviate the issue of bit allocation. Moreover, GMD-based precoding
schemes can eliminate the inter-antenna interference (IAI), and show better performance than the SVD-based
algorithm.18
Space modulation techniques (SMTs) have been widely acknowledged as promising techniques to enormously
enhance the SE and the system throughput for the next generation of wireless networks.19-21 In spatial modulation (SM)
scheme, the transmitter maps the information bits to an antenna index and a symbol drawn from an M-ary amplitude
phase modulation (APM) constellation.22,23 The SM scheme has a single RF chain and a higher SE than SISO systems24 by
utilizing the indices of multiple transmit antennas as a spatial constellation. The SE of SM scheme is enhanced by intro-
ducing the generalized spatial modulation (GSM) scheme which allows for multiple active antennas at each time instant.25
Later, another framework is proposed and referred to as quadrature spatial modulation (QSM).26 This scheme uses both
the quadrature and in-phase symbol components to modulate a spatial constellation independently. A more recent scheme
referred to as signed quadrature spatial modulation (SQSM) is proposed in Reference 27. In SQSM scheme, the SE and
the bit error performance (BER) are significantly improved by using the sign of the quadrature and in-phase compo-
nents of the transmitted symbols that are drawn from the first quadrant of an M-ary APM, even with low modulation
orders, M ≥ 4.
Considering SMTs in mmWave massive MIMO systems is appealing as SMTs in general use a limited number of
power-hungry RF chains while using the mmWave band can further enhance the BER performance with achieving
beneficial beamforming gains.28-31

1.1 Relevant prior art

SMTs are energy efficient and cost-effective techniques with one or few number of RF chains and zero or small
inter-channel interference (ICI). SMTs have no condition on the number of receive antennas, and they can maintain a
good performance even with one receive antenna. This makes them easily adapted to mmWave massive MIMO.29-35 In
Reference 29, an SM scheme with HBF at the transmitter side and digital combining at the receiver is introduced. The
introduced scheme has achieved about 5 dB gain over the traditional MU-SM scheme with only eight elements at each
transmit antenna array. In another work,30 space-time shift keying (STSK) scheme is amalgamated with mmWave MIMO
in order to enhance the system throughput. The reported results in Reference 30 highlighted the advantages of overcom-
ing the high attenuation losses that are encountered at mmWaves, as well as exhibiting substantial beamforming gains.
Moreover, an optimal SE is achieved in References 31 and 32 by using HBF in the GSM scheme. Later, HBF is applied in
the conventional space-time block coded spatial modulation (STBC-SM) scheme, and demonstrated that the ZF and the
minimum mean square error (MMSE) precoding schemes cannot be employed in single-user scenario.33 Recently, a joint
SM scheme and HBF for mmWave massive MIMO communications is proposed in Reference 34 for both single-user and
MU scenarios. The numerical results in Reference 34 showed that the introduced scheme outperforms the other classical
MIMO schemes. In a recent work,35 GMD based-HBF for GSM scheme is introduced with MU support using norm-based
user selection method. In all these schemes, a narrowband channel model is assumed, and all confirm the potential bene-
fits of employing massive MIMO paradigm as an emerging technology for several communication applications. The most
important benefits of massive MIMO include the following: (i) significant improvements are achieved in the energy effi-
ciency and the capacity, (ii) latency reduction is achieved when deep-fading occurs, (iii) increased robustness against the
intentional and deliberate jamming and the unintended man-made interference, and (iv) a reduction in the transmitted
power is achieved.36,37 A comparison between the previous related prior art is listed in Table 1, where in contrast it is clear
ELGANIMI et al. 3 of 18

T A B L E 1 A comparison between the proposed scheme and prior relevant art

Reference Year Beamforming Digital precoding MU support Capacity analysis Error performance SMTs

29 2017 HBF Based on spatially modulated ✓ ✗ ✓ SM

bits
30 2017 HBF BD ✓ ✗ ✓ STSK
31, 31 2017 HBF Space-domain ✗ ✓ ✓ GSM
information-guided digital
precoding
32 2018 HBF Space-domain ✗ ✓ ✗ GSM
information-guided digital
precoding
33 2018 HBF ZF and MMSE precoding ✗ ✗ ✓ STBC-SM
34 2019 HBF — ✓ ✓ ✓ SM
35 2020 HBF GMD-based precoding ✓ ✗ ✓ GSM
Proposed 2021 HBF GMD-based precoding ✓ ✓ ✓ SQSM

that our proposed system includes the three main aspects, namely, MU support, channel capacity, and BER performance
in the context of the recently proposed SQSM scheme.

1.2 Contributions and outline

SQSM scheme has the inherited advantages of SM and QSM but with a higher SE. It also maintains a single RF chain
as one symbol is transmitted and makes it a well-suited technology to be used in mmWave massive MIMO systems.
Therefore, adapting SQSM for mmWave massive MIMO has the advantage of achieving a beneficial beamforming gain
and low-cost with reduced RF chains. The developed structure allows for removing the interference at the transmitter. It
also supports multiple users with user selection process depends mainly on the channel energy, where a subset of users
with the highest squared Frobenius norm values are ordered in a descending order and selected. The main contributions
of the present article are four-fold,

1. This article applies the Frobenius norm-based user selection algorithm to MU-SQSM-MIMO using a fully digital
GMD-based precoding technique. As a consequence, the resultant complexity in both bit and power allocations of the
SVD-based precoding can be avoided.18
2. The design guidelines for a reduced RF-chain SQSM-based mmWave architecture with HBF approach is also pro-
vided by combining the ABF technique and the digital precoding to cancel the multiuser interference (MUI) at
the transmitter. The proposed scheme is referred to as multiuser steered signed quadrature spatial modulation
(MUS-SQSM).
3. The article also examined the impact of varying the number of selected users in MU-SQSM systems, and the effect of
increasing the number of antenna array elements in MUS-SQSM scheme on the BER performance. Additionally, the
impact of the channel estimation errors (CEEs) on the error performance of the MU-SQSM and MUS-SQSM schemes
is also studied.
4. Finally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, presenting and simulating the average mutual information (AMI) of both
the conventional SQSM-MIMO and the proposed MUS-SQSM schemes are not considered previously in the literature.
As a result, the simulated results are substantiated with regard to the applicability of the proposed scheme with varying
several system parameters.

The rest of the present article is structured as follows: A brief description of SQSM system model is included in
Section 2. Section 3 provides a full description of the proposed architecture for the MUS-SQSM scheme. Section 4 presents
the channel capacity of SQSM scheme in single-user and MU scenarios, and the AMI of the introduced MUS-SQSM
scheme. Section 5 shows the BER and AMI performance of the proposed schemes. Finally, the conclusions are drawn in
Section 6 along with future research directions.
4 of 18 ELGANIMI et al.

1.3 Notations

Hereafter, small letters, capital boldface letters, and small boldface letters represent scalars, matrices, and vectors, respec-
tively. tr{A}, AH , and ||A||F represent the trace, the Hermitian
( ) transpose, and the Frobenius norm of matrix A, respectively.
T a
a represents the transpose operation of vector a, b is the binomial coefficient which represents the combinations
that result from choosing b elements from a elements without repetition, and ⌊a⌋ is the floor function that maps a to the
greatest integer less than or equal to a. CM×N denotes a complex matrix with M rows and N columns, and  (𝜇, 𝜎 2 ) rep-
resents the complex normal distribution of a random variable with a mean 𝜇 and a variance 𝜎 2 . The operators ℑ(v) and
ℜ(v) stand for the imaginary and real parts of v, respectively.

2 S Q S M S CH E M E AN D CHANNEL MODEL

Considering a MIMO system with NT antennas at the transmitter and NR antennas at the receiver, an SMT utilizes NT
channel vectors to transmit the information through the MIMO channel. These vectors are considered as extra spatial
constellation symbols.38 As previously discussed, there are many variants of SM schemes which can be found in the
literature.24-27 In SM scheme,24 only one transmit antenna is activated and single symbol is transmitted at each transmis-
sion with a total SE of log2 (NT M). In Reference 25, GSM scheme is proposed as a generalized form of SM scheme, where
NA ≥ 2 antennas are simultaneously activated at the same particular time instant. In this scheme, the transmitted energy
is equally⌊divided( among
)⌋ the active transmit antennas which convey the same data symbol. Thus, the SE of GSM scheme
NT
equals to log2 N + log2 M bits. In QSM scheme,26 the orthogonality between the in-phase and quadrature compo-
A
nents is utilized by transmitting them from different antennas. As a result, the SE is enhanced by adding one extra spatial
dimension to be log2 (NT2 M). In the recently introduced SQSM scheme,27 a block of m = log2 (NT4 M∕4) bps/Hz is trans-
mitted at each time instant. The spectral efficiency is enhanced by increasing the dimension of spatial constellation to 4.
For instance, using 4-QAM and eight transmit antennas allows for m = 8 bps/Hz in QSM and m = 12 bps/Hz for SQSM
scheme. The incoming information bits are divided into five groups as shown in the SQSM encoder depicted in Figure 1.
The spatial SE of SQSM scheme is increased by restricting the modulated M-ary symbol to be chosen only from the first
quadrant. This allows to transmit the positive real xℜ , negative real −xℜ , positive imaginary jxℑ , and negative imaginary
−jxℑ components from four independent antennas.
In this article, the transmitted vector s ∈ CNT ×1 of the conventional SQSM system is assumed to be transmitted over
a MIMO channel H ∈ CNR ×NT which can be modeled as either a mmWave channel with ABF and HBF schemes or a
Rayleigh fading channel having a zero-mean and unit variance in the conventional and fully digital precoded schemes.
The element hpq of the complex channel matrix denotes the channel path gain between the qth transmit antenna and pth
receive antenna, hℜ = [h1,𝓁ℜ , … , hNR ,𝓁ℜ ]T is the 𝓁ℜ
th
column of H, and hℑ = [h1,𝓁ℑ , … , hNR ,𝓁ℑ ]T is the 𝓁ℑ th column of H.

Antenna index for

log2 (NT ) bits

Antenna index for

log2 (NT ) bits

Source log2 (M/4) bits M-QAM SQSM x

Bits Modulation Mapper

log2 (NT ) bits

Antenna index for

log2 (NT ) bits

Antenna index for

FIGURE 1 SQSM encoder

ELGANIMI et al. 5 of 18

Assuming that 𝓁ℜp , 𝓁ℜn , 𝓁ℑp and 𝓁ℑn are the corresponding indices of the antennas that are activated and used to
convey xℜ , −xℜ , jxℑ and −jxℑ , respectively, the NR -dimensional received signal vector y ∈ CNR ×1 can be presented as
√ √ ( )
y= Es Hs + n = Es a x, 𝓁ℜp , 𝓁ℜn , 𝓁ℑp , 𝓁ℑn + n, (1)

where n is an CNR ×1 additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) vector with a zero-mean and a variance of 𝜎n2 per receiver
antenna, Es is the transmitted energy, and
( )
a x, 𝓁ℜp , 𝓁ℜn , 𝓁ℑp , 𝓁ℑn
⎧ ( ) ( )
x h
⎪ ℜ 𝓁ℜp − h𝓁ℜn + jxℑ h𝓁ℑp − h 𝓁 if 𝓁ℜp ≠ 𝓁ℜn and 𝓁ℑp ≠ 𝓁ℑn
⎪√ ( ) ℑn
⎪ 2 h𝓁ℜp xℜ + jxℑ h𝓁ℑp − h𝓁ℑn if 𝓁ℜp = 𝓁ℜn and 𝓁ℑp ≠ 𝓁ℑn
=⎨ ( ) √ , (2)
⎪ xℜ h𝓁ℜp − h𝓁ℜn + 2 j h𝓁ℑp xℑ if 𝓁ℜp ≠ 𝓁ℜn and 𝓁ℑp = 𝓁ℑn
⎪√ ( )
⎪ 2 h𝓁ℜp xℜ + j h𝓁ℑp xℑ if 𝓁ℜp = 𝓁ℜn and 𝓁ℑp = 𝓁ℑn
⎩

where x represents the modulated symbol from the first quadrant. It is assumed in this article that the transmitted signal
vector has a unity variance or Es = 1, and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver input is defined as SNR = 1∕𝜎n2 . The
maximum likelihood (ML) detection at the SQSM receiver is used to find the estimates [̂x, ̂lℜp , ̂lℜn , ̂lℑp , ̂lℑn ] according to
[ ] √
|| ||2
x̂ , 𝓁̂ ℜp , 𝓁̂ ℜn , 𝓁̂ ℑp , 𝓁̂ ℑn = arg min ||y − Es Hs|| , (3)
x,𝓁ℜp ,𝓁ℜn ,𝓁ℑp ,𝓁ℑn || ||

where x̂ represents the estimation the modulated symbol x at the receiver.

In the case of practical scenarios, the imperfect channel estimation should be considered. The channel matrix H
̃ and it is modeled as39,40
estimate is represented as H,

̃ = H − Eh ,
H (4)

where Eh ∈ CNR ×NT denotes the CEE matrix with entries having zero-mean and variance 𝜎e2 , or Eh ∼  (0NR , 𝜎e2 INR ). 𝜎e2
is an indicator for the channel estimation quality that can be properly chosen relying on the channel state information
(CSI) estimation process. In this article, the pilot are assumed to be orthogonal and the estimation error is inversely
proportional to the number of pilots.40,41 As a result, the error variance 𝜎e2 is assumed to be equal to the noise variance 𝜎n2 .

3 M ULT I U SE R ST E E R E D SQSM SYSTEM MODEL

In this section, MUS-SQSM system is introduced for the downlink MU mmWave massive MIMO communications. In
this system, the performance of the conventional SQSM scheme is enhanced by deploying transmit and receive antenna
arrays. The general structure of the proposed downlink MUS-SQSM consists of one base station (BS) with a power-hungry
RF chain and K users as shown in Figure 2. The transmitter is equipped with NT > 1 uniform linear array (ULA) antennas,
each with LT array elements in order to apply the ABF with the aid of a pair of transmit power amplifiers and digitally
controlled phase-shifters dedicated to each element. Similar to the transmitter, each user equipment has NR receive array
antennas, and each of which consists of LR array elements in order to attain an additional beamforming gain. The total
number of antenna array elements at the transmitter and the receiver sides are NT LT and KNR LR , respectively. It is worth
noting that a very large number of antenna elements can be accommodated in a relatively small space into multiple
antenna arrays, due to the small wavelengths of mmWave channels. Moreover, the higher the number of antenna array
elements, the narrower the beam is and the higher the directivity gain is, and hence better performance is obtained.
In MUS-SQSM, the first log2 (M∕4) bits are modulated for the sake of determining the constellation symbol x, and the
other four components of length log2 (NT ) bits of each block of log2 (NT4 M∕4) bits of the information symbols are used to
determine the same or different transmit antenna arrays that simultaneously convey the information bits at each time
6 of 18 ELGANIMI et al.

LR

LT 1 Digital
User 1 Post-coder
Switch QH
NR

1
H
Source SQSM
Digital
User RF
y
Precoder ML
Bits Encoder Selection Chain
P Detector
1
Digital
s User K Post-coder
NT NR QH
LT

Selection Feedback

FIGURE 2 Block diagram of MUS-SQSM scheme with GMD-based HBF, where a single BS selects and serves Ksel ≤ K users

instant to multiple users. The transmitter selects a subset of Ksel users out of K users with the highest channel gains with
the aid of a feedback where the BS selects the users based on the selection criteria that implemented at the receiver. To
this end, the Frobenius norms of all channels between each kth user and the BS (ie, Hk ) are evaluated to select Ksel users
with the highest norm values, where k = 1, 2, … , K. This can be described as42

arg max ||Hk ||2F = arg max tr{Hk HH

k
}. (5)
k∈(1,2, … ,K) k∈(1,2, … ,K)

After each channel estimation, the BS receives K norm values from the K users, and orders these values in a descending
order, then it selects Ksel users with the largest norm values.43 For example, all the possible combinations of selected users
when K = 4 users and Ksel = 2 are given as {(1, ( 2), )(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 4), (3, 4)}. In general, the number of possible
K
combinations for the Ksel sets can be found as K .
sel
To apply a fully digital GMD-based precoding scheme, the symbol vector s ∈ CNT ×1 is precoded by a unitary matrix
P ∈ CNT ×NT in advance of transmission, while the received signal vector y ∈ CNR ×1 is multiplied by a postcoding unitary
matrix QH ∈ CKNR ×KNR . Moreover, the precoding process aim is to provide the IUI and the inter-symbol interference (ISI)
elimination at the transmitter. While the postcoding process aims to enable successful reconstruction of the transmitted
symbols at the receiver. It is assumed in this article that the CSI is available at both the transmitter and the receiver.
As a result, the effective channel matrix of the digital precoding with the GMD algorithm applied to H ∈ CKNR ×NT is
formulated as

HGMD = QH HP = R, (6)

where R ∈ CKNR ×NT is the real triangular matrix with zero entries below the main diagonal and the elements at the
diagonal equal to the geometric mean of the positive eigenvalues of H. In this scheme, however, the complex chan-
nel matrix H = QRPH which is modeled in this article as a Rayleigh fading channel is simplified and converted to a
real upper triangular matrix by multiplying its left-hand matrix, Q, by its Hermitian, QH , while its right-hand matrix,
PH , is multiplied by its Hermitian, P. These two matrix multiplications result in two identity matrices multiplied by
the real triangular matrix R in its two sides. As a result, the equivalent matrix equals to this real upper triangular
matrix.
Moreover, the application of the Frobenius norm-based user selection algorithm in GMD-based precoded MU-SQSM
scheme results in an effective channel matrix44

Heff = arg max tr{HGMDk HH

GMD }. (7)
k
k∈(1,2, … ,K)
ELGANIMI et al. 7 of 18

In this scheme, the overall channel matrix has the size of KNR × NT . The GMD-based precoding architecture results
in removing the interference from all other users at the jth selected user, where j = 1, 2, … , Ksel . If the effective channel
matrix Heff-sel of the jth user with Ksel NR rows of Heff ∈ CKNR ×NT are selected, the received signal at the jth selected user is
given by

∑
Ksel
yj = Heff-selj s + Heff-selq s + nj = Heff-selj s + nj , (8)
q≠j
⏟⏞⏞⏞⏞⏟⏞⏞⏞⏞⏟
≈0

where Heff-selj ∈ CNR ×NT is the effective channel matrix for the selected user j and nj ∈ CNR ×1 is the AWGN noise vector at
the jth user.
To represent (8) by single vectors for all Ksel users, the overall received signal is formulated as

⎡ y1 ⎤ ⎡ Heff-sel ⎤ ⎡ n1 ⎤
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ 1
⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ y2 ⎥ ⎢ Heff-sel2 ⎥ ⎢ n2 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ =⎢ ⎥s + ⎢ ⎥, (9)
⎢ ⋮ ⎥ ⎢ ⋮ ⎥ ⎢ ⋮ ⎥
⎢y ⎥ ⎢H ⎥ ⎢n ⎥
⎣ Ksel ⎦ ⎣ eff-selKsel ⎦ ⎣ Ksel ⎦
⏟⏟⏟ ⏟⏞⏞⏞⏟⏞⏞⏞⏟ ⏟⏟⏟
y Heff-sel n

where y ∈ CKsel NR ×1 is the received signal vector, Heff-sel ∈ CKsel NR ×NT is the effective channel matrix between the selected
users and the BS, and n ∈ CKsel NR ×1 is a vector that represents the noise at all users.
In MU-SQSM scheme, the antenna indices and the transmitted symbol can be estimated from the overall received
signal that expressed in (9) as
[ ]
|| ||2
x̂ , ̂lℜp , ̂lℜn , ̂lℑp , ̂lℑn = arg min ||y − Heff-sel s|| . (10)
Heff-sel ∈H, | | ||
x,lℜp ,lℜn ,lℑp ,lℑn

̃ eff-sel in MU-SQSM scheme is

With the presence of CEE at the receiver, the estimated channel matrix H
39,40
modeled as

̃ eff-sel = Heff-sel − Eh ,
H (11)
eff

where Eheff ∈ CKsel NR ×NT represents the CEE matrix with i.i.d. entries having zero-mean and variance 𝜎e2 , Eheff ∼
 (0Ksel NR , 𝜎e2 IKsel NR ).
The received signal vector of MU-SQSM-aided mmWave massive MIMO with HBF includes the ABF weight vectors
associated with the analog phase shifters is expressed as16,33,35

√ ∑∑
LR −1LT −1
y= LT LR wH H
Rp wTm Heff-sel wTm wRp s + n, (12)
p=0 m=0

where wTm and wRp are the mth and pth elements of the steering vectors wT at the transmitter and wR at the
receiver s. The key factors that affect the ABFs are the AoD and 𝜃AoD at the transmitter and the AoA and 𝜃AoA
at the receiver. Assuming a ULA geometry at each transmit and receive antenna, the steering vectors can be
expressed as5,10
[ ( ( ) ) ]T
1 2𝜋
wT = √ 1, … , exp j(m)d sin(𝜃AoD ) , … , (13)
LT 𝜆
[ ( ( ) ) ]T
1 2𝜋
wR = √ 1, … , exp j(p)d sin(𝜃AoA ) , … , (14)
LR 𝜆
8 of 18 ELGANIMI et al.

where m = 0, 1, … , LT − 1 and p = 0, 1, … , LR − 1 correspond to the indices of the antenna elements in transmit and
receive antenna arrays, respectively, 𝜃AoA denotes the AoA from the mth ABF of the transmitter, while 𝜃AoD represents
the AoD toward the pth ABF of the receiver. 𝜆 denotes the corresponding transmission wavelength, and d is the antenna
elements spacing adopted at each ABF array with d ≤ 𝜆∕2.35 In the proposed MUS-SQSM scheme, it is assumed that the
HBF is fully connected, where each antenna port is directly connected to all antenna array elements, which steer the
signal toward the receiver side. √
At the receiver of the steered schemes, the signal is multiplied by LT LR to ensure a linear scaling of
the power of the received signal power. In MUS-SQSM scheme, the effective mmWave channel matrix HHBF =
√ ∑LR −1 ∑LT −1 H H
LT LR p=0 m=0 wRp wTm Heff-sel wTm wRp is taken into consideration at the receiver side where the antenna indices and
the modulated symbol can be detected using ML detector as
[ ]
|| ||2
x̂ , ̂lℜp , ̂lℜn , ̂lℑp , ̂lℑn = arg min ||y − HHBF s|| . (15)
HHBF ∈H, || ||
x,lℜp ,lℜn ,lℑp ,lℑn

̃ HBF in MUS-SQSM scheme is

With the presence of CEE at the receiver, the estimated mmWave channel matrix H
39,40
modeled as

̃ HBF = HHBF − Eh ,
H (16)
HBF

where EhHBF ∈ CKsel NR ×NT represents the CEE matrix in MUS-SQSM scheme with zero-mean and variance 𝜎e2 , EhHBF ∼
 (0Ksel NR , 𝜎e2 IKsel NR ).

4 CHANNEL CAPACITY

The average mutual information (AMI) of the conventional SQSM and the introduced MUS-SQSM schemes that
usually measured in bits per channel use (bpcu) is characterized in this section. According to Reference 21 where
the AMI of the conventional SMTs is analyzed, the AMI of SQSM scheme in the presence of CEE can be
expressed as

̃ s; Y) = H(Y) − H(Y∕H,
I(H, ̃ s). (17)

̃ s) is the entropy of Y, knowing the transmitted vector s and the estimated channel H,
where H(Y∕H, ̃

{ ( )}
̃ s) = Es NR log2 𝜋(𝜎n2 + 𝜎e2 ||s||2 ) exp(1) ,
H(Y∕H, (18)
F

and
{ }
H(Y) = −EY log2 (pY (y)) , (19)

where pY (y) is the probability density function (PDF) of the received signal vector y, and is written as21
( ̃ 2
)
⎧ exp −||y−Hs|| F ⎫
⎪ 𝜎n +𝜎e ||s||F
2 2 2
⎪
̃ ⎨ .
NR (𝜎 2 + 𝜎 2 ||s||2 )NR ⎬
pY (y) = EH,s (20)
⎪ 𝜋 n e F ⎪
⎩ ⎭

Plugging (20) into (19) gives

( ̃ 2
)
⎧ ⎧ ⎧ exp −||y−Hs|| F ⎫⎫⎫
⎪ ⎪ ⎪ 𝜎n +𝜎e ||s||F
2 2 2
⎪⎪⎪
H(Y) = −EY ⎨log2 ⎨EH,s
̃ ⎨ .
NR (𝜎 2 + 𝜎 2 ||s||2 )NR ⎬⎬⎬
(21)
⎪ ⎪ ⎪ 𝜋 n e F ⎪⎪⎪
⎩ ⎩ ⎩ ⎭⎭⎭
ELGANIMI et al. 9 of 18

T A B L E 2 Parameter settings
Parameter Value

Number of transmit antennas NT = 4

Number of transmit array elements LT
Number of receive antennas at each user NR = 4
Number of receive array elements LR
Total number of users K = 10
Transmission wavelength 𝜆 = 0.5 cm
Carrier frequency 60 GHz
Antenna spacing 𝜆/2
Modulation type 16-QAM for SQSM schemes, and 128-QAM for GSM schemes
Detection technique ML detection

Finally, by plugging (21) and (18) into (17), the AMI of the conventional SQSM scheme in the presence of CEE at the
receiver side can be expressed as
( ̃ 2
)
⎧ ⎧ ⎧ exp −||y−Hs|| F ⎫⎫⎫
{ ( )} ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ 𝜎n2 +𝜎e2 ||s||2F ⎪⎪⎪
̃
I(H, s; Y) = −Es NR log2 𝜋(𝜎n + 𝜎e ||s||F ) exp(1) − EY ⎨log2 ⎨EH,s
2 2 2
̃ ⎨ ⎬⎬⎬ . (22)
⎪ 𝜋 R (𝜎n + 𝜎e ||s||F ) R ⎪⎪⎪
N 2 2 2 N
⎪ ⎪
⎩ ⎩ ⎩ ⎭⎭⎭

Similarly, the AMI of MU-SQSM scheme with norm-based user selection algorithm is expressed as
( )
⎧ ⎧ ⎧ exp −||y−H̃ eff-sel s||2F ⎫⎫⎫
{ ( )} ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ 𝜎n2 +𝜎e2 ||s||F
2
⎪⎪⎪
̃
I(Heff-sel , s; Y) = −Es Ksel NR log2 𝜋(𝜎n + 𝜎e ||s||F ) exp(1) − EY ⎨log2 ⎨EH̃ eff-sel ,s ⎨
2 2 2
⎬⎬⎬ . (23)
⎪ 𝜋 sel R (𝜎n + 𝜎e ||s||F ) sel R ⎪⎪⎪
K N 2 2 2 K N
⎪ ⎪
⎩ ⎩ ⎩ ⎭⎭⎭

For MUS-SQSM scheme aided mmWave massive MIMO with HBF, the AMI has the same form as in (23) but with
̃ eff-sel by H
replacing H ̃ HBF .

5 PERFORMANCE RESULTS AND COMPARISONS

In this section, the BER and AMI performance of the proposed MUS-SQSM scheme against SNR are evaluated and com-
pared to the conventional SQSM system for 10 bits transmission. Extensive computer simulation results are conducted
in order to investigate the BER performance and the AMI of MU-SQSM system with fully digital and hybrid precoding
techniques. In particular, a downlink MU scenario is considered with a single BS equipped with NT antennas serving
multiple user terminals, each equipped with NR = 4 receive antennas. Throughout the simulation, the corresponding
transmission wavelength was 5 mm when ABF is used with equipping NT transmit array antennas, each consisting of LT
array elements, and NR receive array antennas at each mobile user, each consisting of LR array elements. In addition, the
antenna spacing d between ABF array elements was fixed at 0.25 cm which is half the wavelength. A perfect CSI is also
assumed to be known at both the transmitter and the receiver unless otherwise stated. The key parameters summarizing
the system characteristics used in the simulations are illustrated in Table 2.

5.1 BER performance of MUS-SQSM scheme with HBF

The BER performance of the 16-QAM MU-SQSM scheme with a fully digital GMD-based precoding is depicted in Figure 3.
For the sake of fair comparison, single-user SQSM schemes with fully digital SVD- and GMD-based precoding techniques
10 of 18 ELGANIMI et al.

0
10

-1
10

Bit Error Rate (BER)

-2
10

-3
10

10-4
15.4 dB

10-5
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [in dB]

Conventional SQSM 4x4 - 16-QAM

SQSM with Fully Digital SVD-Based Precoding
SQSM with Fully Digital GMD-Based Precoding
MU-GSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = 1 and K = 10) [35]
MU-GSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = 2 and K = 10) [35]
MU-GSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = 3 and K = 10) [35]
MU-GSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = K = 10) [35]
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = 1 and K = 10)
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = 2 and K = 10)
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = K = 10)

FIGURE 3 BER performance of the MU-SQSM scheme using fully digital GMD-based precoding with a norm-based user selection for
m = 10 bps/Hz

are also evaluated. This figure indicates clearly that the SVD- and GMD-based precoded SQSM systems in a single-user
scenario have a noticeable performance degradation in comparison to the conventional single-user SQSM scheme. Unlike
conventional MIMO techniques, and like the conventional ZF and MMSE precoding techniques, SVD- and GMD-based
precoding schemes cannot be used in a single-user SM and SQSM schemes. This is because a part of the data in single-user
case is lost as it is encoded into the channel impulse responses.33,45 Additionally, the BER performance of the MU-SQSM
scheme with a norm-based user selection algorithm and a fully digital GMD-based precoding is significantly enhanced
by about 15.4 dB at the BER of 10−5 over the conventional SQSM scheme. Moreover, it is obvious that the same BER
performance is obtained by selecting any number of users out of K = 10 users in MU-SQSM, even when only one user is
selected. In other words, an SNR value of almost 10.8 dB is required in order to achieve the BER performance of 10−5 in
all MU-SQSM schemes, regardless the number of selected users. This is due to the fact that more antennas are equipped
in the user terminals than the number of transmit antennas, that is, Ksel NR ≥ NT . As a result, the fully digital GMD-based
precoding scheme has significantly improved the BER performance of the MU-SQSM scheme, regardless the number of
selected users, and hence the interference imposed by the other users is perfectly canceled. Moreover, a comparison is
done between MU-SQSM sand the conventional MU-GSM schemes with GMD-based precoding,35 where NT = 5 transmit
antennas are equipped, NA = 2 antennas are activated at each time instant, and 128-QAM is employed. It is clear from
this comparison that the MU-SQSM scheme outperforms MU-GSM by about 6 dB when only one user is selected, while
an improvement of about 3 dB is achieved when more than or equal to two users are selected in MU-GSM schemes. This
is because GSM schemes require higher modulation order than SQSM to achieve the same SE.
Figure 4 depicts the BER performance of MUS-SQSM-aided mmWave massive MIMO system with GMD-based HBF,
where the beam is steered with the aid of employing ABF. In this comparison, the single BS is equipped with NT = 4
ELGANIMI et al. 11 of 18

10 0

10 -1

Bit Error Rate (BER)

10 -2

10 -3

10 -4 As L T and
L R increase

10 -5
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [in dB]

Conventional SQSM 4x4 - 16-QAM

SQSM with Fully Digital GMD-Based Precoding
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding
MUS-GSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 4) [35]
MUS-GSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 16) [35]
MUS-GSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 64) [35]
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 4)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = 8, L R = 4)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = 4, L R = 8)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 16)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 24)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 32)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 64)

FIGURE 4 BER performance of MUS-SQSM schemes with GMD-based HBF and selecting 4 users out of 10 users for m = 10 bps/Hz

transmit antenna arrays, each having LT > 1 elements, and K = 10 user terminals equipped with NR = 4 array antennas
are supported, while only Ksel = 4 users are selected. Each receive array antenna has LR > 1 elements to achieve a fur-
ther SNR gain. It is obvious from this figure that a beamforming gain is attained by using ABF in MU-SQSM system with
GMD-based precoding scheme, and this gain increases by adding more beam-steering elements. For example, SNR gains
of almost 12, 24, 27.6, 30.1, and 36.1 dB can be achieved by employing ABF with LT = LR = 4, 16, 24, 32, and 64 array ele-
ments as compared to the MU-SQSM system with a fully digital GMD-based precoding scheme, respectively. In addition,
the same SNR gain of about 15 dB is obtained when LT = 8, while LR = 4 elements, and LT = 4, while LR = 8 elements
are accommodated. It is clear from these results that the SNR gain that can be achieved by employing ABF in MUS-SQSM
scheme can be expressed approximately as 10 log10 (LT LR ) dB compared to the conventional MU-SQSM system with fully
digital GMD-based precoding technique using single-element antennas. Additionally, the BER performance of MUS-GSM
with GMD-based HBF in Reference 35 is provided for the purpose of comparison, where NT = 5 transmit antennas are
equipped, NA = 2 antennas are activated at each time instant, and 128-QAM technique is employed. This comparison
shows that MUS-SQSM schemes outperform MUS-GSM by about 3 dB with the same number of array elements. This is
because a higher modulation order is required in GSM schemes than that of SQSM schemes in order to achieve the same
SE of 10 bpcu.
Moreover, in Figure 5, the BER performance of the proposed scheme is compared to that of GMD-based hybrid
precoding for mmWave massive MIMO that presented in Reference 18 at 60 GHz and four RF chains. In this compar-
ison, the modulation constellation is assumed to be the same for both schemes which is 16-QAM. It is clear from this
12 of 18 ELGANIMI et al.

0
10

-1
10

Bit Error Rate (BER)

-2
10

-3
10

-4
10

-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30

Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [in dB]

GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 16) [18]

GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 64) [18]
GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 256) [18]
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 4)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 16)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 64)

FIGURE 5 BER performance of MUS-SQSM schemes with GMD-based HBF and selecting 4 users out of 10 users for m = 10 bps/Hz,
and GMD-based hybrid precoding schemes presented in Reference 18

comparison that MUS-SQSM scheme with LT = LR = 4 outperforms the classical GMD-based HBF with LT = LR = 16
and LT = LR = 64 in high SNR region. This is due to the fact that SQSM has significantly improved the performance of
GMD-based HBF for mmWave massive MIMO systems with only 16 antenna elements are equipped in the transmitter
and receiver side of each user. In addition, the MUS-SQSM scheme with LT = LR = 64 outperforms the GMD-based HBF
with LT = LR = 256 in high SNR region.

5.2 Effect of Channel Estimation Errors on the BER Performance

The BER performance in presence of CEEs on of MU-SQSM scheme is evaluated for the transmission rate of 10 bpcu
as depicted in Figure 6. A fair comparison between the proposed scheme and its single-user counterparts requited the
presence of the BER performance of the conventional SQSM scheme and SQSM with fully digital SVD- and GMD-based
precoding techniques. It can be seen that a 3 dB drop in gain happens to the conventional SQSM and GMD-based precoded
schemes with the presence of CEEs compared to the case without channel errors. However, this drop increases to 4 dB in
case of SQSM scheme with SVD-based precoding technique. Therefore, SQSM schemes with GMD-based precoding are
more robust to CEEs compared with SVD-based precoding scheme.
In Figure 7, the BER performance of 16-QAM MUS-SQSM schemes with GMD-based HBF is shown with the presence
of CEEs and different values of antenna array elements. This figure shows that the performance degrades by about 3 dB
in all schemes as compared to the same schemes without CEEs. This performance degradation in the presence of CEEs
can be avoided by either increasing the number of antenna elements in the MUS-SQSM scheme where ULA antennas are
used, or at least doubling the number of antenna array elements in order to achieve a further 3 dB gain. It is noticeable
from this figure that transmission over mmWave channels with ABF does not affect the performance in the presence of
CEEs since the same performance drop is shown in fully digital and hybrid precoded schemes.
ELGANIMI et al. 13 of 18

0
10

-1
10

Bit Error Rate (BER)

-2
10

-3
10

-4
10

10-5
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [in dB]

Conventional SQSM 4x4 - 16-QAM (without CEE)

Conventional SQSM 4x4 - 16-QAM (with CEE)
SQSM with SVD-Based Precoding (without CEE)
SQSM with SVD-Based Precoding (with CEE)
SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (without CEE)
SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (with CEE)
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = 4, K = 10) (without CEE)
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = 4, K = 10) (with CEE)

F I G U R E 6 BER performance of single-user SQSM 4 × 4 with fully digital SVD- and GMD-based precoding schemes and MU-SQSM
with GMD-based precoding in the presence of CEEs for m = 10 bps/Hz

0
10

-1
10
Bit Error Rate (BER)

-2
10

10-3

10-4

10-5
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [in dB]

MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (without CEE)

MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (with CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 4) (without CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 4) (with CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 16) (without CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 16) (with CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 32) (without CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 32) (with CEE)

F I G U R E 7 BER performance of 16QAM MUS-SQSM schemes with GMD-based HBF and selecting 4 users out of 10 users in the
presence of CEEs for m = 10 bps/Hz
14 of 18 ELGANIMI et al.

5.3 Mutual information of MUS-SQSM Scheme with HBF

The AMI performance of the 16-QAM MU-SQSM scheme with fully digital GMD-based precoding technique is shown
in Figure 8, and compared to the conventional SQSM and single-user SVD- and GMD-based precoded schemes. It is
clear from this figure that AMI performance of SQSM with SVD- and GMD-based precoding and the conventional
SQSM system in the single-user scenario are close to each other. In addition, the AMI performance of MU-SQSM
scheme with norm-based user selection algorithm and GMD-based precoding technique outperforms the conventional
SQSM scheme by approximately 12 dB at the same AMI performance. Moreover, like in the BER performance that
shown in Figure 3, it is obvious that the same AMI performance is achieved by selecting any number of users out of
K = 10 users. This is due to the higher number of antennas that are equipped in the user terminals than the num-
ber of transmit antennas, even when only one user is selected. This figure also shows that an AMI of about 1.7 bpcu
is achieved in the conventional SQSM scheme at the SNR of −5 dB, while higher AMI of almost 6.6 bpcu can be
achieved at the same SNR value in the MU-SQSM scheme with norm-based user selection algorithm and fully digital
GMD-based precoding when selecting any number of users. This shows that these schemes offer about 4.9 bits bet-
ter performance than the conventional SQSM scheme. These results highlight that the MU-SQSM scheme can achieve
the AMI performance with much lower SNR value than that of the conventional and fully digital precoded SQSM
schemes.
Moreover, the AMI performance of MUS-SQSM schemes aided mmWave massive MIMO with HBF is shown in
Figure 9 with selecting Ksel = 4 users out of K = 10 users. This figure shows that an AMI improvement and a beamforming
gain are achieved by combining ABF and GMD-based precoding scheme in MU-SQSM system. For instance, an SNR gain
of almost 6, 18, and 24 dB can be achieved by employing ABF with LT = LR = 2, 8, and 16 array elements as compared to
MU-SQSM scheme with fully digital GMD-based precoding, respectively. As previously discussed in the BER performance
results, these SNR gains can be expressed as 10 log10 (LT LR ) dB with respect to the same schemes using single-element
antennas. This corroborates the earlier mentioned fact that with higher number of antenna elements, better performance
can be achieved because of the narrower beam and higher directivity gain.

10
Mutual Information [in bpcu]

8
12 dB

6
4.9 bits

0
-25 -15 -5 5 15 25
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [in dB]

Conventional SQSM 4x4 - 16-QAM

SQSM with Fully Digital SVD-Based Precoding
SQSM with Fully Digital GMD-Based Precoding
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = 1 and K = 10)
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (Ksel = K = 10)

FIGURE 8 AMI performance of the 16-QAM MU-SQSM scheme with a fully digital GMD-based precoding
ELGANIMI et al. 15 of 18

10

Mutual Information [in bpcu]

8
As LT and LR
increase
6

0
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [in dB]

Conventional SQSM 4x4 - 16-QAM

SQSM with Fully Digital GMD-Based Precoding
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 2)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 8)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (L T = L R = 16)

FIGURE 9 AMI performance of 16-QAM MUS-SQSM schemes with GMD-based HBF and selecting 4 users out of 10 users

10
Mutual Information [in bpcu]

As L and L
T R
6 increase

0
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [in dB]
Conventional SQSM 4x4 - 16-QAM (without CEE)
Conventional SQSM 4x4 - 16-QAM (with CEE)
SQSM 4x4 with SVD-Based Precoding (without CEE)
SQSM 4x4 with SVD-Based Precoding (with CEE)
SQSM 4x4 with GMD-Based Precoding (without CEE)
SQSM 4x4 with GMD-Based Precoding (with CEE)
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (K = 4, K = 10) (without CEE)
se l
MU-SQSM with GMD-Based Precoding (K se l = 4, K = 10) (with CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (LT = LR = 8) (without CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (LT = LR = 8) (with CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (LT = LR = 16) (without CEE)
MUS-SQSM with GMD-Based HBF (LT = LR = 16) (with CEE)

F I G U R E 10 AMI performance of the conventional SQSM 4 × 4 scheme, single-user SQSM with fully digital SVD- and GMD-based
precoding schemes and MUS-SQSM with GMD-based HBF in the presence of CEEs
16 of 18 ELGANIMI et al.

5.4 Effect of channel estimation errors on the mutual information

Finally, Figure 10 depicts the AMI performance of the conventional SQSM scheme, single-user SQSM scheme with SVD-
and GMD-based precoding, MU-SQSM with GMD-based precoding scheme, and MUS-SQSM-aided mmWave massive
MIMO systems with the presence of CEEs. The results shows 3 dB deterioration in the AMI performance in all MUS-SQSM
schemes as a result of CEE. While, in case of the conventional SQSM schemes with SVD- and GMD-based precoding, the
deterioration becomes 3.5 dB. This shows that MUS-SQSM schemes with GMD-based HBF technique are very robust to
CEEs where a lower performance drop is shown in the presence of CEEs than that of their conventional counterparts.

6 CO N C LUSION S

In this article, the BER and AMI performance of MUS-SQSM scheme aided mmWave massive MIMO with HBF is intro-
duced and compared to the conventional SQSM and fully digital precoded schemes. It is shown from the simulation
results that the fully digital GMD-based precoded scheme has an enhanced performance than that of SVD-based pre-
coding. Thus, all MU schemes in this article have been employed with GMD algorithm in order to circumvent the bit
allocation problem and the different SNR values at each subchannel in the case of the SVD-based scenario. In addition, the
Frobenius norm-based user selection algorithm is performed in the MU-SQSM scheme with GMD-based precoding, and
combined with ABF for the sake of achieving a beneficial beamforming gain. The simulation results have also indicated
that the BER and AMI performance are substantially improved as the number of selected users increases, and further
enhanced as the number of beam-steering elements increases. Additionally, a performance drop of about 3 dB can be
noticed in MUS-SQSM system in the case of imperfect CSI compared to the case with perfect CSI at the receiver. In con-
trast, the CEE can result in a performance deterioration of almost 3.5 dB in the traditional single-user SQSM with SVD-
and GMD-based precoding and the MU-SQSM scheme over the same schemes with perfect CSI at the receiver. The results
dedicate that the MUS-SQSM schemes have a higher immunity against the CEEs than the conventional schemes with
the presence of CEEs. Therefore, the introduced MUS-SQSM scheme with GMD-based HBF can be effectively considered
as a suitable alternative technique in various 5G wireless networks. Future studies will focus on applying reconfigurable
intelligent surfaces (RIS) in MUS-SQSM scheme for mmWave communications in order to further improve the system
performance,46 and achieve further diversity gains.47

AU THOR CONTRIBUTIONS
The research work has been done by Taissir Y. Elganimi and supervised by both Ammar M. Abu-Hudrouss and
Khaled M. Rabie.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

ORCID
Ammar M. Abu-Hudrouss https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0600-0218

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How to cite this article: Elganimi TY, Abu-Hudrouss AM, Rabie KM. Multiuser steered signed quadrature
spatial modulation for millimeter-wave massive multiple-input multiple-output with hybrid beamforming. Trans
Emerging Tel Tech. 2022;e4475. doi: 10.1002/ett.4475