Efficient Index Modulation-Based MIMO OFDM Data Transmission and Detection for V2V Highly Dispersive Channels

<jats:p>Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication networks are based on vehicles that wirelessly exchange data, traffic congestion, and safety warnings between them. The design of new V2V systems requires increasingly energetically and spectrally efficient systems. Conventional multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems have been used successfully for the last decade. However, MIMO-OFDM systems need to be improved to face future communication networks in high-mobility environments. This article proposes an efficient index modulation (IM)-based MIMO-OFDM system for V2V channels. The proposed transmission system is evaluated in high Doppler-spread channels. The results demonstrate that the proposed scheme reduces the required computational complexity in data detection and exhibits gains of up to 3 dB in bit error rate (BER) performance when compared to the conventional MIMO-OFDM system under the same conditions and parameters, along with achieving superior spectral efficiency. The results show the viability of implementing the proposed system in practical applications for high-transmission-rate V2V channels.</jats:p>