Cooperative Symbol-Based Signaling for Networks with Multiple Relays

Wireless channels suffer from severe inherent impairments and hence reliable and high data rate wireless transmission is particularly challenging to achieve. Fortunately, using multiple antennae improves performance in wireless transmission by providing space diversity, spatial multiplexing, and power gains. However, in wireless ad-hoc networks multiple antennae may not be acceptable due to limitations in size, cost, and hardware complexity. As a result, cooperative relaying strategies have attracted considerable attention because of their abilities to take advantage of multi-antenna by using multiple single-antenna relays. This study is to explore cooperative signaling for different relay networks, such as multi-hop relay networks formed by multiple single-antenna relays and multi-stage relay networks formed by multiple relaying stages with each stage holding several single-antenna relays. The main contribution of this study is the development of a new relaying scheme for networks using symbol-level modulation, such as binary phase shift keying (BPSK) and quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK). We also analyze effects of this newly developed scheme when it is used with space-time coding in a multi-stage relay network. Simulation results demonstrate that the new scheme outperforms previously proposed schemes: amplify-and-forward (AF) scheme and decode-and-forward (DF) scheme

End-to-End Joint Antenna Selection Strategy and Distributed Compress and Forward Strategy for Relay Channels

Multi-hop relay channels use multiple relay stages, each with multiple relay nodes, to facilitate communication between a source and destination. Previously, distributed space-time codes were proposed to maximize the achievable diversity-multiplexing tradeoff, however, they fail to achieve all the points of the optimal diversity-multiplexing tradeoff. In the presence of a low-rate feedback link from the destination to each relay stage and the source, this paper proposes an end-to-end antenna selection (EEAS) strategy as an alternative to distributed space-time codes. The EEAS strategy uses a subset of antennas of each relay stage for transmission of the source signal to the destination with amplify and forwarding at each relay stage. The subsets are chosen such that they maximize the end-to-end mutual information at the destination. The EEAS strategy achieves the corner points of the optimal diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (corresponding to maximum diversity gain and maximum multiplexing gain) and achieves better diversity gain at intermediate values of multiplexing gain, versus the best known distributed space-time coding strategies. A distributed compress and forward (CF) strategy is also proposed to achieve all points of the optimal diversity-multiplexing tradeoff for a two-hop relay channel with multiple relay nodes.Comment: Accepted for publication in the special issue on cooperative communication in the Eurasip Journal on Wireless Communication and Networkin

Capacity and Power Scaling Laws for Finite Antenna MIMO Amplify-and-Forward Relay Networks

In this paper, we present a novel framework that can be used to study the capacity and power scaling properties of linear multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) $d\times d$ antenna amplify-and-forward (AF) relay networks. In particular, we model these networks as random dynamical systems (RDS) and calculate their $d$ Lyapunov exponents. Our analysis can be applied to systems with any per-hop channel fading distribution, although in this contribution we focus on Rayleigh fading. Our main results are twofold: 1) the total transmit power at the $n$th node will follow a deterministic trajectory through the network governed by the network's maximum Lyapunov exponent, 2) the capacity of the $i$th eigenchannel at the $n$th node will follow a deterministic trajectory through the network governed by the network's $i$th Lyapunov exponent. Before concluding, we concentrate on some applications of our results. In particular, we show how the Lyapunov exponents are intimately related to the rate at which the eigenchannel capacities diverge from each other, and how this relates to the amplification strategy and number of antennas at each relay. We also use them to determine the extra cost in power associated with each extra multiplexed data stream.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor