Spatial-modulated physical-layer network coding in two-way relay networks with convolutional codes

We consider a spatial modulation (SM)-based physical-layer network coding (PNC) technique with convolutional codes (CC) for a two-way relay network (TWRN) consisting of two source nodes and a single relay node. We assume all communicating nodes are equipped with multiple antennas. Two source nodes simultaneously transmit packets by utilizing the SM with CC to the relay node. The relay node detects signal by utilizing a maximum-likelihood detection technique based on a direct decoding or a separate decoding algorithm. Through extensive simulations, it has been shown that the SM-based PNC technique outperforms the conventional PNC technique. Note that the direct decoding has low complexity, while achieving a similar performance to the separate decoding in terms of bit error rate (BER).