Relay Selection Strategies for Multi-hop Cooperative Networks

In this dissertation we consider several relay selection strategies for multi-hop cooperative networks. The relay selection strategies we propose do not require a central controller (CC). Instead, the relay selection is on a hop-by-hop basis. As such, these strategies can be implemented in a distributed manner. Therefore, increasing the number of hops in the network would not increase the complexity or time consumed for the relay selection procedure of each hop. We first investigate the performance of a hop-by-hop relay selection strategy for multi-hop decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative networks. In each relay cluster, relays that successfully receive and decode the message from the previous hop form a decoding set for relaying, and the relay which has the highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) link to the next hop is then selected for retransmission. We analyze the performance of this method in terms of end-to-end outage probability, and we derive approximations for the ergodic capacity and the effective ergodic capacity of this strategy. Next we propose a novel hop-by-hop relay selection strategy where the relay in the decoding set with the largest number of ``good\u27\u27 channels to the next stage is selected for retransmission. We analyze the performance of this method in terms of end-to-end outage probability in the case of perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI). We also investigate relay selection strategies in underlay spectrum sharing cognitive relay networks. We consider a two-hop DF cognitive relay network with a constraint on the interference to the primary user. The outage probability of the secondary user and the interference probability at the primary user are analyzed under imperfect CSI scenario. Finally we introduce a hop-by-hop relay selection strategy for underlay spectrum sharing multi-hop relay networks. Relay selection in each stage is only based on the CSI in that hop. It is shown that in terms of outage probability, the performance of this method is nearly optimal

Applications of Repeated Games in Wireless Networks: A Survey

A repeated game is an effective tool to model interactions and conflicts for players aiming to achieve their objectives in a long-term basis. Contrary to static noncooperative games that model an interaction among players in only one period, in repeated games, interactions of players repeat for multiple periods; and thus the players become aware of other players' past behaviors and their future benefits, and will adapt their behavior accordingly. In wireless networks, conflicts among wireless nodes can lead to selfish behaviors, resulting in poor network performances and detrimental individual payoffs. In this paper, we survey the applications of repeated games in different wireless networks. The main goal is to demonstrate the use of repeated games to encourage wireless nodes to cooperate, thereby improving network performances and avoiding network disruption due to selfish behaviors. Furthermore, various problems in wireless networks and variations of repeated game models together with the corresponding solutions are discussed in this survey. Finally, we outline some open issues and future research directions.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables, 168 reference

Exploiting Diversity in Broadband Wireless Relay Networks

Fading is one of the most fundamental impairments to wireless communications. The standard approach to combating fading is by adding redundancy - or diversity - to help increase coverage and transmission speed. Motivated by the results in multiple-input multiple-output technologies, which are usually used at base stations or access points, cooperation commutation has been proposed to improve the performance of wireless networks which consist of low-cost single antenna devices. While the majority of the research in cooperative communication focuses on flat fading for its simplicity and easy analysis, in practice the underlying channels in broadband wireless communication systems such as cellular systems (UMTS/LTE) are more likely to exhibit frequency selective fading. In this dissertation, we consider a frequency selective fading channel model and explore distributed diversity techniques in broadband wireless relay networks, with consideration to practical issues such as channel estimation and complexity-performance tradeoffs. We first study a system model with one source, one destination and multiple decode-and-forward (DF) relays which share a single channel orthogonal to the source. We derive the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) for several relaying strategies: best relay selection, random relay selection, and the case when all decoding relays participate. The best relay selection method selects the relay in the decoding set with the largest sum-squared relay-to-destination channel coefficients. This scheme can achieve the optimal DMT of the system at the expense of higher complexity, compared to the other two relaying strategies which do not always exploit the spatial diversity offered by the relays. Different from flat fading, we find special cases when the three relaying strategies have the same DMT. We further present a transceiver design and prove it can achieve the optimal DMT asymptotically. Monte Carlo simulations are presented to corroborate the theoretical analysis. We provide a detailed performance comparison of the three relaying strategies in channels encountered in practice. The work has been extended to systems with multiple amplify-and-forward relays. We propose two relay selection schemes with maximum likelihood sequential estimator and linear zero- forcing equalization at the destination respectively and both schemes can asymptotically achieve the optimal DMT. We next extend the results in the two-hop network, as previously studied, to multi-hop networks. In particular, we consider the routing problem in clustered multi-hop DF relay networks since clustered multi-hop wireless networks have attracted significant attention for their robustness to fading, hierarchical structure, and ability to exploit the broadcast nature of the wireless channel. We propose an opportunistic routing (or relay selection) algorithm for such networks. In contrast to the majority of existing approaches to routing in clustered networks, our algorithm only requires channel state information in the final hop, which is shown to be essential for reaping the diversity offered by the channel. In addition to exploiting the available diversity, our simple cross-layer algorithm has the flexibility to satisfy an additional routing objective such as maximization of network lifetime. We demonstrate through analysis and simulation that our proposed routing algorithm attains full diversity under certain conditions on the cluster sizes, and its diversity is equal to the diversity of more complicated approaches that require full channel state information. The final part of this dissertation considers channel estimation in relay networks. Channel state information is vital for exploiting diversity in cooperative networks. The existing literature on cooperative channel estimation assumes that block lengths are long and that channel estimation takes place within a fading block. However, if the forwarding delay needs to be reduced, short block lengths are preferred, and adaptive estimation through multiple blocks is required. In particular, we consider estimating the relay-to-destination channel in DF relay systems for which the presence of forwarded information is probabilistic since it is unknown whether the relay participates in the forwarding phase. A detector is used so that the update of the least mean square channel estimate is made only when the detector decides the presence of training data. We use the generalized likelihood ratio test and focus on the detector threshold for deciding whether the training sequence is present. We also propose a heuristic objective function which leads to a proper threshold to improve the convergence speed and reduce the estimation error. Extensive numerical results show the superior performance of using this threshold as opposed to fixed thresholds

Wireless transmission protocols using relays for broadcast and information exchange channels

Relays have been used to overcome existing network performance bottlenecks in meeting the growing demand for large bandwidth and high quality of service (QoS) in wireless networks. This thesis proposes several wireless transmission protocols using relays in practical multi-user broadcast and information exchange channels. The main theme is to demonstrate that efficient use of relays provides an additional dimension to improve reliability, throughput, power efficiency and secrecy. First, a spectrally efficient cooperative transmission protocol is proposed for the multiple-input and singleoutput (MISO) broadcast channel to improve the reliability of wireless transmission. The proposed protocol mitigates co-channel interference and provides another dimension to improve the diversity gain. Analytical and simulation results show that outage probability and the diversity and multiplexing tradeoff of the proposed cooperative protocol outperforms the non-cooperative scheme. Second, a two-way relaying protocol is proposed for the multi-pair, two-way relaying channel to improve the throughput and reliability. The proposed protocol enables both the users and the relay to participate in interference cancellation. Several beamforming schemes are proposed for the multi-antenna relay. Analytical and simulation results reveal that the proposed protocol delivers significant improvements in ergodic capacity, outage probability and the diversity and multiplexing tradeoff if compared to existing schemes. Third, a joint beamforming and power management scheme is proposed for multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) two-way relaying channel to improve the sum-rate. Network power allocation and power control optimisation problems are formulated and solved using convex optimisation techniques. Simulation results verify that the proposed scheme delivers better sum-rate or consumes lower power when compared to existing schemes. Fourth, two-way secrecy schemes which combine one-time pad and wiretap coding are proposed for the scalar broadcast channel to improve secrecy rate. The proposed schemes utilise the channel reciprocity and employ relays to forward secret messages. Analytical and simulation results reveal that the proposed schemes are able to achieve positive secrecy rates even when the number of users is large. All of these new wireless transmission protocols help to realise better throughput, reliability, power efficiency and secrecy for wireless broadcast and information exchange channels through the efficient use of relays

RF-Powered Cognitive Radio Networks: Technical Challenges and Limitations

The increasing demand for spectral and energy efficient communication networks has spurred a great interest in energy harvesting (EH) cognitive radio networks (CRNs). Such a revolutionary technology represents a paradigm shift in the development of wireless networks, as it can simultaneously enable the efficient use of the available spectrum and the exploitation of radio frequency (RF) energy in order to reduce the reliance on traditional energy sources. This is mainly triggered by the recent advancements in microelectronics that puts forward RF energy harvesting as a plausible technique in the near future. On the other hand, it is suggested that the operation of a network relying on harvested energy needs to be redesigned to allow the network to reliably function in the long term. To this end, the aim of this survey paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the recent development and the challenges regarding the operation of CRNs powered by RF energy. In addition, the potential open issues that might be considered for the future research are also discussed in this paper.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, Accepted in IEEE Communications Magazin

Relay Selection for Wireless Communications Against Eavesdropping: A Security-Reliability Tradeoff Perspective

This article examines the secrecy coding aided wireless communications from a source to a destination in the presence of an eavesdropper from a security-reliability tradeoff (SRT) perspective. Explicitly, the security is quantified in terms of the intercept probability experienced at the eavesdropper, while the outage probability encountered at the destination is used to measure the transmission reliability. We characterize the SRT of conventional direct transmission from the source to the destination and show that if the outage probability is increased, the intercept probability decreases, and vice versa. We first demonstrate that the employment of relay nodes for assisting the source-destination transmissions is capable of defending against eavesdropping, followed by quantifying the benefits of single-relay selection (SRS) as well as of multi-relay selection (MRS) schemes. More specifically, in the SRS scheme, only the single "best" relay is selected for forwarding the source signal to the destination, whereas the MRS scheme allows multiple relays to participate in this process. It is illustrated that both the SRS and MRS schemes achieve a better SRT than the conventional direct transmission, especially upon increasing the number of relays. Numerical results also show that as expected, the MRS outperforms the SRS in terms of its SRT. Additionally, we present some open challenges and future directions for the wireless relay aided physical-layer security.Comment: 16 pages, IEEE Network, 201