Receive Antenna Selection Based on Union-Bound Minimization Using Convex Optimization

Despite their high spectral efficiencies, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems suffer from high cost and complexity due to multiple radio frequency chains at both link ends. A possible solution is to select a subset of the available antennas at transmitter and/or receiver based on maximal capacity or minimal error rates. In this letter, we propose a receive antenna selection algorithm based on the minimization of the union bound on the vector error rate. By relaxing the antenna selection variables from discrete to continuous, we arrive at a convex optimization problem. Efficient numerical methods such as interior-point algorithms can be applied to solve this optimization problem with polynomial complexity.